


Let the Sky Fall

by ChipTheKeeper



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Basically all original characters, F/F, Trauma, is there therapy in space?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26980441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipTheKeeper/pseuds/ChipTheKeeper
Summary: A hotshot Rebel pilot's life and career are turned upside down near the end of the Galactic Civil War. She doesn't think she can ever get her old self back, until a familiar face comes back into her life.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Character(s), Cara Dune/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. To-Do List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright I've been working on this off and on for what feels like months. I was going to post it all at once if at all, but I can't seem to finish the last chapter. Ergo, gonna post a couple of chapters and see if there's any interest, and hopefully if there is that will motivate me to finish. At this point I am annoyed at myself for once again recycling my own made up character but also...until they give Cara a canon girlfriend I am forced to give her one myself. So yeah, here's this.

_**~4 ABY~** _

Flirting with strangers at the bustling Rebel base hadn’t been on Captain Rylan Killis’s to-do list when she spotted the beautiful shock trooper on her way through the hangar. But then again, it wasn’t _not_ on her to-do list.

Luckily her list always left room for fun when she managed to find it, so when she caught a glimpse of the dark and mysterious stranger, she didn’t think twice about making an approach. The hangar was teeming with soldiers of all sorts making preparations for the next day’s battles, but the shock trooper was seated alone amidst the controlled chaos. For a moment all Rylan could do was stand there and admire the woman’s muscular arms as she meticulously went about polishing her rather large blaster rifle. But a nudge from a passing astromech droid snapped her out of her daze and sent her striding in the dropper’s direction.

Rylan stood in front of her, hands thrust into her pockets and a coy grin on her face. If the woman noticed her, she didn’t show it.

“So, how much did it cost?” Ry asked, but the dropper declined to look up.

“How much did what cost?”

“Your passage from the moons of Iego,” the pilot replied, finally earning a look from the dark-haired woman, along with an inquisitive eyebrow raise. “Are...you are an angel, aren’t you?”

The shock trooper rolled her eyes so hard that Rylan worried for a moment they might get stuck looking at the back of her skull.

“I actually cannot believe you just said that,” the woman said. “Has that ever actually worked?”

“Usually does, yeah,” Ry said with a frown. It wasn’t that she actually thought the line was particularly effective itself, but most of the time her words didn’t matter as much as her overall vibe. It wasn’t often she was shot down on sight.

“Well, not this time.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Rylan pouted, and for an instant the dropper’s sabacc face faltered as the edges of her mouth gave a hint of a smile. The pilot noticed and saw it as an opportunity.

“Give me another shot?” she asked, putting the grin back on.

“Why not,” said the trooper, reclining back on the stack of crates where she was seated, clearly enjoying the show.

“Okay how about this, uh....are you from Mustafar? Because you have....you’re very...hot--okay yeah, no, I just have the one line.”

The muscular woman snorted. “Clearly.”

“How about I just buy you a drink instead?” Rylan suggested.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re....at the base...”

“Shit, you’re right,” the pilot said, making a show of looking around the hangar before taking a seat next to the dropper and surreptitiously pulling a flask out of a pocket on the inside of her jacket.

The other woman’s eyes lit up as she took the drink offered to her.

“Now, you see, you should have led with that,” she said before taking a long swig.

Rylan grinned as the woman grimaced at the taste of the drink, took another one, and handed the flask back to her. She took a drink herself, then turned her probing blue eyes back to the soldier.

“So, you’re a shock trooper, huh?”

The woman looked pointedly down at the ring of stripes tattooed around her own right arm. “What gave it away?”

“Definitely your eyes,” Rylan replied with a smirk, and the trooper answered with an unamused scowl. “Yep, there it is. A dropper’s glare if ever I’ve seen one.”

The woman shook her head and took another drag from the flask before speaking.

“Sure don’t need a tattoo or a glare to tell you’re a pilot,” she stated confidently, and Rylan could only shrug.

“Guilty as charged,” she said, then pointed across the hangar at her X-wing. “Rogue Seven. But you can call me Ry. Or Rylan. Or Captain Killis.”

She held out her hand and the dropper took it to shake before introducing herself in return.

“Cara Dune. _Commander_ Cara Dune.”

“Oh, excuse me,” Rylan said, sitting up straight so as to portray respect to her superior officer, but Commander Dune just chuckled at her.

“At ease, Captain.”

“As you wish, Commander.”

They chatted easily after that, swapping stories from their most recent battles and realizing collectively that they’d been in the same ones quite a few times, just from very different angles. They talked about what led them to the Rebellion, about their upbringings on their respective home worlds. Rylan didn’t know what to say once Cara revealed herself to have been from Alderaan, however, and the natural flow of the conversation stalled for a moment before the shock trooper quickly deflected it back to her as if she’d had to do the same thing a thousand times before.

“So I’ve always wondered, does the cocky attitude come with the flight suit or are you pilots all born that way?”

The ever-present grin on Rylan’s face grew into a proud smile. “Well, I can’t speak for all of us, but in my case I think the suit just enhanced my personality.”

Cara nodded slowly as she watched the pilot lean confidently on the crates behind her. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“What about you? That scowl standard issue or do droppers just come out angry?”

“Kicking and screaming,” the shock trooper answered with another drag from the flask. She frowned when she realized it was empty, then shook it at the blonde captain. “Don’t suppose you’ve got another one of these hidden away?”

“‘fraid not.”

“That’s too bad. This conversation was just starting to be tolerable.”

Cara handed back the flask and began to stand, but Rylan wasn’t ready to watch her go just yet.

“Hey if it’s alcohol you need, I know where to get more,” she assured her. “In fact I can name at least five ‘secret’ stashes in this very hangar.”

The dropper seemed to ponder her words for a moment before shrugging. “Can’t say that doesn’t sound like a fun scavenger hunt.”

“I knew I liked you.”

Rylan led the commander across the hangar to where the X-wings were docked, keeping an eye out for any other officers who might still be lingering now that most of the activity from earlier had died down. There didn’t seem to be any, so she made quick work of finding several more flasks and small bottles among her fellow pilots’ things. After assuring Cara that she’d replenish everyone’s stocks eventually she gave her the pick of drinks. Together they sat and continued drinking and talking under the captain’s very own starfighter.

After a while she noticed that the shock trooper’s bottle didn’t seem to be running as low as her own and felt the need to draw attention to it.

“Now where did I get the impression that droppers were the hardest-drinking soldiers?” she asked rhetorically. “I didn’t think I’d be the one out-drinking you here.”

“That’s only because we’re still on base, hotshot,” Cara replied with a confident smirk. “If we were off duty I’d drink you right under the table.”

“And I would be happy to let you,” Rylan replied, and the commander rolled her eyes dramatically once more.

“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a smart mouth, Rylan Killis?”

“Yes but usually not until the morning after,” the pilot responded without missing a beat. She smiled charmingly at the other woman and sat her drink down. “Which brings me to my next point. What do you say we get out of here and find somewhere a little less not my bunk?”

Cara’s eyebrows threatened to shoot up her forehead but she controlled them expertly. “Wow, just going right for it, huh?”

“Well, it’s getting late,” Rylan reasoned with a shrug. “And life is short.”

“Speaking of which, don’t they have you guys on call for a mission in the morning?”

They most definitely did. Word was that high command was preparing for an attack on Fondor, where a key Imperial shipyard might be vulnerable, and the squadron could be called up to move at any moment. But an impending skirmish had never stopped Rylan from going after what she wanted before.

“All the more reason to have some fun tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

“Is that not what we’re doing now?”

“No, what you’re doing now is stalling,” the captain said. “It’s okay if you want to say no, I promise it won’t hurt my feelings. But you don’t have to stall.”

She looked at the trooper intensely, her bright blue eyes shining even in the poorly lit hangar. They were imploring, inviting, mesmerizing. And she knew it. They were her secret weapon. The shock trooper bit her bottom lip in thought, and Rylan could tell her weapon was working. Or so she thought.

“No.”

The captain’s smile disappeared in a flash. “No?”

“You said your bunk, I say no,” Cara summarized, a playful grin gracing her lips. She stood up and moved out from under the X-wing. “A commander’s quarters are much more accommodating.”

The trooper turned and began walking away. Rylan was stunned for a moment but then realized finally what was happening. She jumped up excitedly and smacked her head on the underside of the starfighter before hustling to catch up with the other woman.

She reached her side and put on the charming smile again.

“I am yours to command.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ry went to the same school of flirting as Anakin. Luckily she's just a lesbian and not a sociopath.


	2. Crash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the actual events of this chapter (and the rest of the story) take place 6 years after the first one, but the beginning of this is a dream of what happened basically right after that. I think I made that clear enough but I don't want anybody to be confused.

**~10 ABY~**

_“Rogue Seven, checking in.”_

_The phrase never fails to send a thrill through Rylan’s body. No matter how dire the situation, how tense the battle, saying those words always puts her at ease. If only for a moment._

_Ever since her crummy childhood on Corellia, the only place she’s ever felt truly at home is in the cockpit of a starship. And yes she’s biased, but she truly believes there is no better or more rewarding way to fly one than in the Rebel Alliance’s Rogue Squadron. The day they promoted her to the elite group was the proudest day of her life, although there’s not necessarily much competition for that._

_Rylan listens to the transmissions roll in as the rest of her squadron call out their checks as well. She makes an effort to focus, to clear her mind of the previous night’s escapades with the alluring shock trooper. It usually doesn’t take this long, putting aside one of her “dates” before taking off, but there’s just something about that one...._

_The captain gives her head a hard shake to remind herself not to think any further about it._

_“You good over there, Killis?”_

_She glances to the right and sees her wingman smirking at her from his own X-wing, his bushy mustache practically quivering with anticipation._

_“Never better, Tych. See if you can keep up today, huh?”_

_“You’re on, Ace.”_

_Rylan and Tycho have been causing problems for Imperial TIE fighters together for the better part of two years now, and there’s no one she’d rather have by her side. Often their banter is competitive and maybe overly gleeful, but they both do take the job seriously. They know what’s at stake and have seen too many of their comrades fall already to do otherwise._

_“All wings, lock S-foils in attack formation,” she hears her commander order, then switches a button on the left side of her control panel to do just that._

_Everything after that is a blur._

_The Rebel attack had been anticipated by the Empire, and fighters are quickly snuffed out like dozens of lights in a sudden blackout. Amid the blur she can hear Tycho’s voice, high and afraid, calling out for help._

_But she can’t help him. She can’t help anyone._

_His voice grows into a scream just before the flash of an explosion blinds her from her starboard side. The blast is close enough to knock her off course, and before she can right the ship she feels the impact of a particle blast against her own hull._

_After that Rylan feels nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing. There’s just the fall. And the panic. And the realization that the escape hatch isn’t going to open._

_And then there is the crash._

Rylan woke with a start.

She sat up quickly, panting and sweating and trying to come back to reality. No matter how many times the dream came back around to haunt her, it didn’t get any easier to shake it off. Living through the crash had been bad enough. Why she was made to experience it over and over in her nightmares was beyond her understanding.

Also beyond her understanding was how she’d survived in the first place. She remembered very little of the battle -- only what the dream was insistent on showing her -- but nothing at all from the aftermath. During her recovery someone had told her what had happened, but at this point she couldn’t remember that conversation either. All she knew was that they’d rescued her from the crash site on Fondor’s moon after the battle, that she’d broken quite a few bones, and that her wingman and most of her squadron were gone.

The bones had healed in the bacta tank, but the rest of her injuries would last forever.

Rylan’s whole life had changed in that battle, the last one she ever fought with the Alliance. Even after her broken bones had been mended, the damage to her head had remained. Her focus was gone, her reflexes and memory were shot, she suffered through headache after headache. Even if she’d wanted to get back into a starfighter, no one in their right mind would have let her.

But for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to. Just the thought of it scared her, stressed her to the point of hyperventilation. So many of her friends had died that day, and it was as if the pilot in her had died right along with them.

She sat there in bed with her face in her palms, trying to control her breathing, when she felt a cold hand on her back.

“Ry? You okay?” a faint voice asked, clearly only half awake at best. She sighed.

“Yeah Bria. Just the dream again. Go back to sleep.”

The chilly hand fell away and back to the bed again as Rylan stood up slowly. She turned and looked at the woman who’d already returned to her slumber, her flowing red hair laid inexplicably neat across her shoulders and her pale skin almost glowing under the moonlight from the window. She wished Bria hadn’t gone right back to sleep, even though she told her to. She wished the woman had done more to try to comfort her, like she used to. But at this point the dream was just the beginning of a sad routine. Rylan would be woken up by the crash, shrug off help even though she needed it, and spend the rest of the night awake and wondering what she and her squadron could have done differently. Bria might as well just keep sleeping. There wasn’t much use in both of them being up for this.

Ry dragged herself out of the small house she and Bria shared to sit outside on the front steps. The moons were bright, but clouds threatened to cover them and the city was eerily quiet. Among the things she couldn’t remember, the reason she’d ended up settling in Theed was just one of many. It must have been Naboo’s peaceful reputation, the friendly accommodation of its people. She had needed that desperately, needed a calm, welcoming place she could always return to when things got crazy. And they often got crazy. Such was the nature of her job since the end of her tenure as a pilot.

Living up to the cliche of the Corellian smuggler hadn’t exactly been part of her career plans when she’d finally escaped the shipbuilding world, but after the crash and her subsequent medical discharge from the Alliance it had made the most sense. She joined up with a crew out of a desperate need for credits, then bounced around between a few different ones for a couple years before finally settling in with one that appreciated her combination of skills and...issues.

Not long after she sat down on the steps, her holotransmitter chimed with an incoming call from the leader of that crew. She answered it and seconds later saw the grainy, holographic version of her Twi’lek captain.

“Hey, Dalla.”

“Ry? You there?” the captain asked, squinting at her. “I can barely see you.”

“Yeah, it’s just dark here. Nighttime, you know?” She must have been sitting outside longer than she realized, as the clouds had already drowned out the bright light of the moons.

“Oh. Did I wake you?”

“Nah, I was already up,” Ry said with a sigh. “Had the dream again.”

“Ah....” Dalla said. She and the rest of their crew had heard plenty of times about the former pilot’s recurring nightmare, but they knew better than to ask about it. Even if Rylan wanted to talk about it, there wouldn’t be much to say.

“Yeah. So what’s up, Dall?”

“Just wondering when you’ll be ready to get back to it. We gotta find a replacement for Nack sometime soon,” Dalla reminded her. They’d lost a shipmate to another crew recently, the Trandoshan they employed as their muscle. With just Dalla as the captain and pilot, Rylan as the mechanic, and their flighty Theelin slicer, they were a little short-handed and a lot vulnerable. “I’ve got a list of possibles but I want us all to check ‘em out together.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Ry assured her. She’d been back in Theed for a month and while it was nice to relax for a little while, it was also boring. And it didn’t pay.

“Alright. How’s Bria?”

“Uh, asleep.”

“Not exactly what I meant, laser brain.”

“Bria’s fine, Dall. We’re fine,” the Corellian said unconvincingly, but Dalla didn’t push it.

“If you say so,” she replied. “Tell that slippery little thief we could use someone like her in this crew if she ever decides she needs a new adventure.”

“Will do, Captain,” Rylan promised with a sarcastic salute. She didn’t actually plan to tell Bria. She had a feeling she already knew what the answer would be.

A muffled, mechanical grunting noise came through on the transmission.

“Oh, R5 says hi,” Dalla told her, referring to the old astromech droid that made up the rest of their crew.

Rylan had to chuckle. “Hey, Arf.”

More grunting followed as the droid picked up on her use of its nickname. Dalla just shook her head before wrapping up the call.

“Go get some sleep, Ry,” she commanded. “I’ll be there in a couple days.”

“Alright. See you then.”

Dalla’s order for her to get some rest went unfulfilled. Even when Rylan did decide to go back and rejoin Bria in bed, sleep eluded her. She laid there quietly, listening to the soft snores of the woman next to her, thinking about what her captain had said. Their band of scoundrels really could have used Bria’s skills as a thief and pickpocket, but there was no way she would agree to join them. Lately she’d seemed to be counting the hours until Rylan left again, whereas they both used to count the hours until she came home.

Rylan did remember how she and Bria had come to be together, but the why of it was a different story. They’d both grown up on the streets of Corellia’s capital city and knew of each other but hadn’t interacted much. Eventually Rylan had been able to leave the planet after being recruited to fly with the Alliance, never expecting to go back or see anyone from Coronet City again. But no more than a week after she’d settled in on Naboo, there was Bria, smiling at her from across the bar in Theed’s dingiest cantina. And the rest was history.

She supposed what kept them together now more than anything was the familiarity, the assurance of having somewhere and someone to return to. At least that’s what it was on Rylan’s end. Naboo was safe and so was Bria. After her life had been so completely upended by the crash, she had no desire to leave it vulnerable to that happening again. Sometimes she wished she could go back to the way she was before the crash, confident and flirty and ready and willing to get with anybody else who was ready and willing. She didn’t think that was ever going to happen though.

Maybe the shock trooper from the night before her last battle had been right. Maybe it had just been the flight suit all along.

~

Rylan had to fight hard to focus on the conversation as she and her crewmates discussed the list of possible new hires. As first mate on the Corellian VCX-100 known as the _Enigma_ , her opinion mattered second only to Dalla’s. But some days the listening thing didn’t come easily, and today was turning out to be one of those.

She didn’t even realize it until Dalla’s green-skinned hand was waving in front of her face. “Hello? Ry, you awake?”

“What? Yeah,” the Corellian said, snapping out of her daze. “Wait, what?”

The Theelin woman by her side, Ishti, gave her a soft knock on the head. “Talkin’ about muscle, Killis. Remember? Trying to find an enforcer?”

“Right, yeah. Sorry, just spaced out.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” Dalla said sarcastically. “So like I was saying, most of the options we know are either dead, otherwise employed, or in prison.”

“Shocking,” Ishti interjected. “Why can’t we just poach somebody like that other gang did to us with Nack?”

“Same reason Nack left,” Rylan said, and the white-skinned Theelin looked at her questioningly. “We don’t pay very well, Ish.”

The slicer snorted derisively. “What ever happened to doing something because you love it?”

“Not a luxury everyone can afford,” Dalla answered before steering the conversation back on track. “Anyway, I have gotten a few recommendations from trusted sources. Let’s see...there’s a Devaronian named Burg -- although I’ve heard no one’s been able to track him down for a while -- then we got a Dowutin, a Wookiee, a Zabrak....and a human.”

“A human?” Ishti repeated, slugging Rylan playfully in the shoulder. “Don’t we have more than enough of those already?”

“Hey, if you want to look for a mechanic too...” the resident human responded. R5 chimed in to say he could handle it if she left, but the rest ignored him.

“Now Ish, you know we don’t discriminate on this ship,” Dalla chided in a fake lecturing tone. “But I do share your concern. If this woman’s anywhere near the same size as our human here, she’s got no business selling herself out as an enforcer.”

“A woman? Really?” Ry asked. It wasn’t often they’d come across anyone with a female enforcer, and on the rare occasion it happened, they were usually of the mean variety. That had a tendency to bring down crew morale.

“Yep, someone named...Cara Dune,” the captain said, checking her datapad with her notes. “Comes highly recommended from a guy I know on Nevarro.”

Rylan squinted in thought. “Why does that name sound familiar...?”

Dalla and Ishti looked at each other and shrugged.

“It’s not to me,” said the Twi’lek.

“Me either.”

“Hmm.” Since neither of them knew the name and the Corellian didn’t know anybody in the business that her shipmates didn’t know, she decided to chalk it up to the faulty wiring in her brain.

At least she did until their trip to meet Cara Dune a week later on Sorgan, when Dalla pointed out the dark-haired brawler in the middle of a fight.

“No way....” Rylan said in awed disbelief, recognizing the woman’s sharp eyes, toned arms, and telltale ring of tattooed stripes instantly. It all clicked into place at once.

“What?” Ishti asked, then grimaced as the fighter they’d come to see body slammed her opponent with frightening ease.

“I knew I recognized that name...”

“You know her?” guessed Dalla as the fight came to an end with Cara Dune choking her opponent into submission.

“I _knew_ her,” Rylan corrected. “Well, for a night anyway.”

“Oh,” the pilot said distantly as she watched the winner collect credits from various patrons, then suddenly realized the implication of what her mechanic had just said. “ _Oh_. Would that be a problem?”

Rylan couldn’t take her eyes off the woman. She looked exactly the same as she had the night they’d met, save for a minuscule tattoo under her left eye that the Corellian couldn’t quite make out from a distance. For a moment it was almost like she was back on the base, staring at the shock trooper from across the hangar. For a moment, she felt like she hadn’t lost her old self completely.

But the moment passed as quickly as a flash of lightning.

“No,” she said. “I’m sure she doesn’t even remember me.”

Ishti laughed. “Oh but you remember her? Miss Brain Damaged Amnesiac?”

Rylan wanted to laugh with her, but instead she continued to stare.

“Yeah. Hard to forget the last good thing that happened to you before your whole life fell apart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you like this! I have it 95% done but I really need a push if that last 5% is ever gonna get out of my brain and into a google doc.


	3. Nice and Boring

Rylan didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation when the crew finally got around to talking to Cara Dune.

Dalla and Ishti had gotten rather excited after watching the woman take down her much larger opponent in the fight they’d witnessed, but the Corellian just remained stunned and silent while they introduced themselves and all sat down for a drink. Ever since her discharge, she’d made it a point to avoid contact with people she knew from the war as much as possible. It always inevitably led to the discussion she hated, the one about Fondor, about the crash. So talking to the last person she’d met and had fun with before everything went to hell didn’t seem at all appealing.

She was able to listen for once though, and she gathered from the conversation that Cara had been working as a mercenary for the past few years, picking up jobs here and there, but she now wanted a more permanent post, like the one they were offering. She skirted around the topic of her “early retirement” from the Alliance and was cagey when Dalla asked about the recommendation from her source on Nevarro, but none of them pushed it. They all had their secrets, and as long as it didn’t interfere with their work she would be entitled to hers as well.

Rylan couldn’t help but wonder how many more secrets the Alderaanian had accumulated since they’d seen each other. There hadn’t been many between them by the time they’d parted ways the first time, even after just an evening together. Alcohol had played a big role in that of course, but even without it Rylan probably would have been just as open with her. Back then she had nothing to fear in that regard. She didn’t have to shield herself, didn’t have to worry what anyone thought of her or wanted from her. They had been in the middle of a war, after all. There was always a decent chance that neither party would live long enough to use each other’s secrets against them anyway.

Back in the present day, the former shock trooper wrapped up a rather impressive story about how she and a friend had saved a nearby village from raiders -- bringing down an AT-ST in the process -- then suddenly turned her attention to Rylan.

“I’m sorry, you look really familiar,” she said as if she’d been holding in that thought for a while. “Did we work together on a different crew or something?”

The Corellian could only open and close her mouth awkwardly for a few moments before her brain caught up enough to answer.

“Uhh...something. We met during the war, right after Endor. We were both stationed at the base on Crait....” she said, hoping that would be enough to make the other woman remember, but Cara just continued to squint at her. Rylan sighed and continued with a mumble. “I was the idiot pilot who came up to you in the hangar and...asked if you were an angel.”

Dalla and Ishti each made sounds as if they couldn’t quite contain their laughter. Cara didn’t laugh, but she didn’t look entirely convinced either.

“That was you?” she asked. Rylan nodded sheepishly. “Huh.”

The mechanic looked away in embarrassment. She knew she didn’t actually look all that different from the way she had on Crait. She had a few more lines on her face now, a slightly different way of wearing her short blonde hair, some lost pounds of muscle -- but nothing had been drastically altered. Except for her eyes. Back then they’d been bright and vibrant, full of light and life. Now they were dull, sunken, but still perfectly reflective of the way she felt inside.

“Would that affect anything if we offered you the job?” Dalla asked, attempting to stay as on-task as possible.

“Don’t see why it would,” Cara said.

She continued to study Rylan’s face, but the Corellian wouldn’t meet her gaze. She couldn’t. She knew exactly why the mercenary couldn’t believe she was the same person that had flirted with her so brazenly all those years ago. Because she really wasn’t the same person at all.

“Alright then,” the captain said. “Would you give us a moment?”

“Take all the time you need,” said Cara. She got up and went over to the bar to give them space to talk and Rylan tried not to want to steal glances at her.

“Well? What do we think?” Dalla inquired simply.

“I like her,” Ishti said immediately. “In fact I think I might be in love with her.”

The Twi’lek rolled her eyes. There weren’t many sentients in the galaxy that Ishti wouldn’t fall in love with, no matter the gender or the species. She’d even hit on Rylan when she had first joined the crew.

“First of all, not helpful. And anyway, I think you’d have to get in line.” She smirked at Rylan, but the mechanic only stared at the table. “Ry? You want to object?”

Her crewmates’ eyes studied her as she stared some more, then finally looked up and shook her head.

“No. She’s our best option. If we don’t get her now we’ll miss our chance.”

As nervous as it made her, it was the only choice. They’d met with most of Dalla’s other recommendations and they were all fine but none of them had felt like the right fit. Cara Dune was as tough as anyone, smart, brave, and fun to be around on top of everything else. It would be utterly selfish of Rylan to veto her hiring just because she wanted to avoid an awkward conversation or two.

“Well that settles it,” Dalla said, then waved the mercenary back over to the table. She smiled warmly at the woman and reached out to shake her hand. “Welcome to the crew, Cara Dune.”

~

If Rylan had ever had any hope of getting out of talking to Cara about the end of her career as a pilot, that hope was dashed the moment the new crew member was brought onboard the _Enigma_. Sleeping quarters were in short supply on the freighter, and the only available bunk was the other one in the Corellian’s room.

She gave their new enforcer as much space as she could while she moved in and got settled, but when it came time to turn in for the night she had no choice but to face her. Cara sensed her lingering presence in the doorway and beckoned her inside. She was seated on her bed, the bottom of the twin bunks, polishing her blaster pistol. Rylan felt a pang of familiarity upon seeing her meticulous work. The gun had been much bigger before, but it was the same task she was doing the first time she saw her.

“Pretty different sleeping arrangements from the last time we saw each other, huh?” the former dropper spoke suddenly, grinning but not looking up. “If I remember correctly, you weren’t the one on top last time.”

At that she did look up, in plenty of time to see Rylan sputter in response, her cheeks growing as red as the laser beams the blaster produced.

“I-I don’t...I don’t remember,” the mechanic managed to reply. Cara just continued to smirk at her.

“Would have thought it would take a lot more than that to make you blush,” she commented as though she had a whole list of things she’d been planning to say in an effort to make that happen. “When’d you get so shy, Captain Killis?”

“I’m not a captain anymore,” Rylan stated on impulse before beginning to stammer again. “And it’s not--I-I’m...I’m with someone now, that’s all. I’m with someone.”

She shut her mouth and scrambled quickly up to the top bunk so that they couldn’t look at each other any longer.

“Ohh I see....got yourself a wife, huh?” Cara asked, clearly enjoying this and not quite ready to let her off the hook.

“Something like that,” Ry muttered. The thought had briefly crossed her mind once or twice, but Bria had never shown any interest in them actually getting married.

“Well. That sounds nice and boring,” the Alderaanian said, suddenly sounding less like she was mocking her, and more like she felt sorry for her. “Never would have guessed you’d go for nice and boring.”

Rylan didn’t respond. The version of her that Cara knew, the version that had been brave enough to try to pick her up using the galaxy’s worst pickup line, never _would_ have gone for nice and boring, never would have settled down at all. Before the crash, she never understood what kind of appeal that type of life had for anyone. Why tie yourself to one person, one place, for any extended period of time when there were so many possibilities out there? There was fun to be had in all corners of the galaxy and everywhere in between, and she’d been intent on having as much of it as she possibly could once the war was over.

That was the Rylan that Cara remembered. The one she was now must have been terribly disappointing.

They were both quiet for a long time and eventually the new enforcer put her blaster away and turned out the light. Rylan was pretty sure she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon, but she was relieved that they were at least done conversing for the night. Until Cara’s voice cut through the darkness.

“So, I’m confused,” she said. “Why does this crew need two pilots?”

Rylan wanted to pretend like she was asleep and didn’t hear, but instead she sighed deeply.

“It doesn’t,” she answered. “I’m just the mechanic, I...I don’t fly anymore.”

It physically hurt to say the words out loud, and she hoped that wasn’t evident in her voice but knew it probably was.

“What, why not?” Cara asked, almost incredulously. “Last I saw you, that was your entire personality.”

“Yeah, well....the last time you saw me was the last time that was true.”

“Did...was that... _my_ fault?” For the first time in the conversation the Alderaanian sounded serious, concerned.

“No, not at all,” Rylan assured her. She steeled herself before continuing her explanation. “We went off to attack an Imperial shipyard the next day, remember? Not a lot of us came back. I did, but....not the same.”

“The Fondor ambush. I remember now...” Cara said. She paused, as if trying to recall the event more fully, then asked, “That’s the last time you flew?”

The Corellian nodded, the lump in her throat too thick to allow her to speak, but then remembered it was dark and they were in separate bunk beds. She swallowed hard.

“Yeah. I don’t even remember much of it,” she said. “And nowadays I can’t even sit in a cockpit without, uhh...I believe the phrase Ishti uses is ‘spazzing out.’”

“That’s a shame,” Cara said solemnly. “You were good.”

“How would you know?”

The Alderaanian chuckled in the darkness, and Ry made a point to ignore the fleeting leap her heart made at the sound.

“After that night I might have looked up your service record,” the former commander admitted. “And asked around about you.”

“Wow,” Rylan said, genuinely shocked. “Didn’t realize you were that into me.”

“Neither did I until afterward. Or I guess...during.”

They shared a momentary laugh, and in that moment their whole night together flashed through the Corellian’s mind. All the banter, the drinking, the stories. All the touches, the kisses, the moans of pleasure. She ached to have that night back, to start everything over again from there.

But that was impossible.

“Well...doesn’t matter now,” she said sadly. “That’s not me anymore.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. That me died in the crash.”

Rylan said it with a finality, a subtle warning not to push the subject any further, and again the silence settled in between them. But again, Cara broke it when she least expected.

”I don’t think that’s true,” she said.

And as much as Rylan wanted to know why that was, she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think I am gonna finish this thing over the weekend so posting it has in fact served its purpose already but please let me know what y'all think!


	4. The Jump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna get this whole thing posted before the new season starts so we're gonna go two chapters at a time from now on I think.

Cara Dune was quickly and unceremoniously thrown into the fire in her first few weeks as a member of the _Enigma_ crew. And she could not have handled it any better.

Their first job had gone slightly sideways on Trandosha, where they attempted to make one of their routine deliveries but were greeted in a less than friendly way by their contacts. The group they usually delivered to tried to avoid paying the agreed-upon price, claiming they had only previously made that amount because their crew employed a Trandoshan and now that Nack was gone they weren’t entitled to the same payout. But the new enforcer diffused the situation quickly, by way of threatening various forms of pain and suffering. It became clear in a hurry that the Trandoshans were all talk, and the crew was paid its fee as earned.

The next job was even more sticky. Their cargo delivery to a low-level sect of the Pyke Syndicate had come up short -- through no fault of theirs -- and rather than everyone talking it out like evolved beings, blasters were drawn. Cara was quicker than any of them though, and took out the two Pykes with the biggest guns before anyone else could make a move. Once again the crew was able to depart with its full fee and the belief that they’d be respected should they ever return.

If there had been any doubt that Cara was the right choice for the team, it was put to rest in short order. With her onboard, they were a fine-tuned machine, ready to take on the galaxy’s toughest jobs.

But for the time being they were grounded. The _Enigma_ wasn’t quite as finely tuned as its crew, and toward the end of their last trip Rylan had been alerted to a malfunction in the fusion system. Moreover, she hadn’t had the necessary parts to fix it until they’d been able to land on Dantooine. After retrieving what she needed, she and R5 had spent all morning and into the afternoon tinkering with the Corellian ship’s sensitive power core. That was, until the astromech had stormed off to the other side of the engine room after they had a difference of opinion over how best to address a problem with the primary heat exchanger.

Rylan worked just fine on her own after that, and in fact found it far more peaceful, but soon enough she needed his help. She’d over-tightened one of the couplings before momentarily turning her attention to a different area, only to realize a second later she had gotten her hand stuck.

“R5, would you bring me the hydrospanner?” she asked from inside the opening in the floor, hoping the droid was past pouting enough to bring her the tool that would free her. But he made no reply. “Arf?.... _Arf!_ ”

“I think he left.”

The mechanic whipped her head around to see Cara standing above her, holding onto one end of the hydrospanner and smacking the other into the palm of her empty hand.

“Yeah, he has a tendency to do that when I call him a rusty, cone-headed tin can full of loose nuts,” Rylan said, repeating verbatim what had apparently been the last straw for the droid. Cara shook her head but handed her the tool. “Thanks.”

“I can’t say I blame him.”

“Come on, even you know he probably deserved it,” the mechanic said as she freed her hand and shook out the cramp in it. Cara may have only been a member of the _Enigma_ crew for a few weeks, but that was more than enough time to have learned that their beloved astromech could be a bit of a diva.

“True,” the enforcer agreed. She sat down carelessly on the low shelf surrounding the hyperdrive, and Rylan tried not to let it bug her -- it probably wouldn’t hurt anything anyway. The Corellian went back to her work while Cara watched her quietly. Then after a moment, she popped a seemingly random question. “So, are you...happy?”

Rylan was caught completely off-guard by it.

“With...the hydrospanner?” she asked, examining the tool in confusion.

“Yes, with the hydrospanner,” the Alderaanian replied sarcastically. “No, laser brain. Like overall, in life.”

The extra context didn’t help much. “Why...?”

“Just wondering,” Cara said with a shrug.

“Did Dalla put you up to this?”

“No. Stop stalling.”

“I will not, why are you asking me that?”

“Because,” said the enforcer. “I’m...concerned.”

“Concerned?” Rylan repeated.

“Yes.”

“About me?”

“Yes. Should I not be concerned about my crewmate?”

Rylan climbed out of the hole in the floor where she’d been working, leaned against the wall of equipment with her arms crossed, and squinted questioningly at the Alderaanian.

“Usually crewmates’ concern for each other only goes so far as to ask ‘are you still alive and capable of doing your job?’” she said. “Why are you really asking?”

“I told you, I’m concerned.”

“Why.”

“Because, I....” Cara began, then trailed off with a look down at her boots. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“Like....this?” Something told her Cara wasn’t talking about how she was covered in engine grease.

“Yeah. You’re like...a shell of yourself. Like a ghost,” explained the enforcer, and suddenly Rylan understood. This was just what she’d wanted to avoid -- someone’s new experience with her not living up to their previous expectations. “It’s sad, okay? It makes me sad.”

“Well I’m sorry my personal tragedy has put a damper on your mood,” the Corellian snapped, turning away and pretending to work on something else. She regretted the outburst instantly, remembering that the Alderaanian’s personal tragedy far outweighed her own. But she didn’t take it back, and Cara didn’t seem to fault her for her insensitivity.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said with a sigh. “It makes me sad _for_ you. I mean you’ve got this job, and you’ve got...some girl. But I don’t think you’re happy, and I just hate to see that after...after you helped me learn how to be happy again.”

“Hold on.” Ry shook her head in confusion before turning back around. “I did what?”

For the first time she could remember since Cara joined the crew, she looked fully serious, almost anxious. Almost, well, sad. She stood up from the shelf and paced around before leaning on the wall opposite the mechanic.

“When we met, I was... _this_ version of myself,” she said, gesturing at Rylan’s general gloomy presence, “and you were the one that showed me the way out of it. That night with you? It changed me. It reminded me to be more spontaneous, to keep living my life. Before that I was just focused on the fight, just waiting for the day the Empire killed me along with the rest of Alderaan. But you came up to me with all that confidence and joy and you showed me that...even in the middle of all the chaos and the shit, there were good things to be found and felt,” she paused and looked at Rylan with soft eyes. “And that’s still true. Even if you can’t see it right now.”

The Corellian could only stare at her. There was so much to process. She had no idea she’d had such an effect on Cara, no idea their night together had meant so much to the other woman. She definitely wasn’t living up to her expectations. Not even close. But how could she? Nothing was the same after that night -- for either of them, apparently.

“Well what do you want me to do, Cara?” she asked, and the desperation she felt was audible. “I’m...I’m just not that person anymore. I don’t have the flight suit or the attitude to go with it now.”

“Well, maybe that’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“The flight suit. Maybe if you get back to flying you’ll learn how to be happy again.”

She said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy, as if all Rylan would have to do was flip a switch and everything would be back to normal.

“It’s not that simple,” the mechanic said through gritted teeth.

“Maybe not. But the way I see it, you’ve either gotta find a way back into the cockpit, or you’ve gotta find a way to be okay without it.”

“I am okay without it,” Rylan said defensively, but Cara saw right through the lie she tried to tell them both, and called her out on it sternly.

“Bull. Shit. Killis.” She stepped toward her and bore into her soul with those dark brown eyes. “It’s time to start being honest with yourself. At the very least.”

She stood there for a moment, towering over the slouched mechanic and waiting for a response, waiting for Rylan to admit that she wasn’t okay. But Ry said nothing and looked away, so she turned to leave. She was a step away from exiting the engine room when the Corellian finally spoke up.

“Cara...” she said in a soft voice, and the woman turned back around expectantly. Rylan wished she could say what she wanted her to. But she wasn’t ready yet. “Would you tell R5 to get back in here?”

The Alderaanian sighed disappointedly before going to leave again.

“Whatever you say Ry.”

~

Rylan spent the next two days trying and failing to strike a balance between time spent fixing the ship and brooding over the conversation with Cara. R5 and the fusion system were both still giving her trouble, but not nearly as much as the enforcer’s blunt observations about her mental well-being.

They hadn’t really spoken again after that. Ry was quite literally holed up in the engine room most of the time and Cara seemed to be giving her space. Even when they shared the same space, neither of them brought up the subject from before. But that didn’t stop the Corellian from obsessing over it.

Cara was dead right about her not being happy, she had to admit that at least. Even when everything was going perfectly well, when she had nothing in her life to complain about, she still didn’t feel anything close to content. She wasn’t living, merely existing, just floating along on the wind with no purpose. Nothing gave her life meaning like she’d had as a pilot -- not the job and the crew, not her home in Theed, not even Bria.

The Alderaanian’s suggestion about how to rectify that, though, was misguided. There was no way Rylan could get back what she was, no way to get back in the pilot’s seat again. Was there? No, there wasn’t, she’d decided at least a dozen times over the two days it took to finally get the ship back in shape.

But by the end of the second day, as she sat alone on top of the freighter and peered up at the clear, starry sky over Dantooine, she’d started to wonder again.

Rylan heard the opening of the _Enigma_ ’s dorsal hatch, followed by careful footsteps behind her.

“Arf said you wanted to see me?” Cara’s voice uttered. “Well, Dalla said Arf said you wanted to see me. I still can’t understand that thing.”

“You’ll get there,” the mechanic replied, patting the metal hull beside her in an invitation to sit. When the enforcer complied -- after a brief hesitation -- she reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out her flask. She offered it to Cara, just as she had the first night they met. Cara looked skeptically at it, then at her, before taking it. Ry watched her take a swig and then looked back up at the heavens. “Nice night, huh?”

“I guess so,” the Alderaanian said, following her gaze up to the night sky. Countless stars and planets sparkled beautifully against the dark void of space. It was quiet except for the natural sounds of the forest they were docked next to.

Rylan continued staring upward, looking longingly into the space she’d spent so much time navigating as a pilot.

“You know, the first time I ever flew a real starship was on a night like this,” she told Cara. “I’d been racing swoops and boosting speeders pretty much since I learned to walk, but people on Corellia knew better than to let us scrumrats fly anything that could actually leave the planet ‘cause they knew none of us would ever come back. But eventually I got to leave anyway when the Rebels recruited me, sent me to Yavin to learn how to really fly. I was a natural, they told me. Only had to spend half as many weeks training on the simulators as the other recruits. When they finally put me in a real X-wing I was so excited I couldn’t stop shaking. But it was the best moment of my life. No competition.”

She smiled wistfully and shook her head at the memory of that night, when she’d felt truly free and happy for the first time in her existence. She could feel Cara’s eyes on her but kept her own on the sky as she continued in a quiet, pained voice.

“You were right. I’m not okay without it. Not even a little bit. These past five years or so I’ve just....been lying to myself. Pretending. Distracting myself with one thing or another so I don’t have to acknowledge how much it...fucking hurts.” Ry paused and finally turned to look at the other woman, her eyes shining with tears she refused to let fall. “I want it back. I want the old me back. I want to...be the me that you knew....but I just don’t know how that’s ever gonna happen.”

Cara chose not to respond to her admission for what felt like several minutes, instead staring sympathetically at her long enough that Rylan had to look away. Finally she handed the flask back and offered her thoughts.

“Not overnight, that’s how,” she said, giving the Corellian a friendly smile.

“Sounded like that’s what happened to you.”

Cara let out a hearty laugh. “Oh you were good that night Killis, but not that good,” she said, leaning back with her palms on the hull of the ship. “Meeting you made me realize I needed to change, yeah, but it took a lot longer to actually come to terms with everything. That’s how this trauma shit works, you know. Only takes a second for it to fuck you up, but it takes so much longer to learn to live with it. Not even to get rid of it. Just...to learn that it doesn’t have to define you.”

If anyone could speak to the importance of not letting trauma define you, Rylan realized, it was a survivor of Alderaan.

“Seems like you’re doing alright with that,” she said, but Cara shook her head.

“Not all the time. Some days I wake up just as screwed up as you do. Only I know by now that I’m the one in control of whether or not I wake up the same way the next day.”

“That all makes sense, but...I still don’t see how it helps me get back in the pilot’s seat,” Rylan said. Just maybe she could get to the point where, as Cara said, she could be okay without flying. But the ultimate goal would always be to have that part of her back as well. It’s what she was born to do. Being okay was one thing. Being whole again, being happy, was something else.

“Well, that can’t be done overnight either. Just because you were a natural the first time doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, especially if it scares you,” Cara reasoned. “But if there’s one thing I learned as a dropper, it’s that the best way to get over your fear of heights is just to get up there and jump.”

“That’s very poetic,” the Corellian said with a sarcastic snort and Cara shrugged.

“Okay so we weren’t the most sentimental warriors,” she conceded. “But I think you know what I mean.”

Rylan took a long drink from her flask as she considered the enforcer’s advice. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” she said finally. “Just don’t know if I want to find out what happens when you jump before you’re ready.”

“Don’t you worry, soldier,” Cara said, clapping a strong hand on her shoulder. “A good commander would never let that happen.”

Ry did her best not to squirm under the former commander’s touch and gaze. She was nearly successful.

“Are you saying you want to help me?” she asked. She didn’t trust herself to be sure of that assumption. No one had ever wanted to help her do anything in her life, as far as she could remember. And she didn’t really understand what was in it for Cara to do so.

“It’s not about what I want, Ry. But if you want me to help you, I’ll do whatever I can.”

The Alderaanian brought her hand away but continued to look at her with a pair of intense dark eyes. Rylan looked away and back toward the sky. Amidst the stars she saw a familiar streak of light that could only be a ship jumping to hyperspace. The ache to be the pilot making that move again was overwhelming.

“Alright,” she said, then turned to meet Cara’s eyes once more. “Let’s do it.”


	5. Distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a mention of suicidal ideation in this one. Nothing too overt but it's definitely there.

“Ry? Hello?” Bria sighed over the holo-call. “If you’re too busy we can talk later.”

“Huh?” the Corellian replied dumbly before actually absorbing what the other woman had said. “Oh. No, I’m--it’s...I’m here.”

Rylan stumbled through the not-entirely-true statement. She was there, in a physical sense, talking to her girlfriend over hologram while sitting in her usual perch atop the _Enigma_. But mentally she’d somehow been transported to the ground, where her attention kept drifting off to watch Cara attempting to teach Ishti how to fight. The two of them had been at it all morning, part of an ongoing bit of tutoring by the enforcer in which the Theelin seemed to be learning nothing at all. Ry had watched them repeat the same lesson on choke-holds at least three times in recent weeks and was beginning to suspect that the crew’s amorous slicer wasn’t actually in it for the combat knowledge at all.

She tried to keep her attention from returning to them as Bria spoke.

“I just want to know when you’re coming back,” the red-headed woman said, and with that Rylan’s attention was fully with her. It had been some time since Bria had shown enough real interest in her being present to ask when it would happen next. Maybe she’d noticed the mechanic’s improved mood over the last couple of months, since Cara had called her out and in doing so inspired her to try to get her shit together. Maybe cleaning things up in her head would make them both realize they hadn’t completely lost whatever spark they once had.

“Well, uhh...we’ve gotta wait for our cargo to run from Kessel so I don’t know for sure,” Rylan replied with a contemplative scratch of her head. There was really no telling how long they’d be stuck where they were, waiting for their contacts to reach out to say their shipment was ready. The dregs of the Outer Rim’s society rarely ran on airtight schedules. “And then I have no idea how many jobs we’ve got lined up after that. Could be a few more weeks.”

“Alright, well...just promise you’ll let me know when you’re on your way, okay?”

Rylan was in the process of agreeing when loud laughter from the ground broke her concentration again. She looked down to see Cara practically in tears, presumably over some terribly inappropriate story or awful joke Ishti had just told. The Corellian had been slowly piecing together her confidence again, making a real effort to be part of more moments like that with the crew, but it wasn’t coming easily. And even when she was right there with them, she felt as distant from their enjoyment as she was right then. In her days as a pilot, Rylan had always loved being the center of attention, the life of the party. Now she found it difficult to even be in the vicinity of the party, and almost unbearable to be the object of anyone’s attention.

But damn if the sound of Cara’s laughter didn’t make her wish she was the one responsible for it.

“Ry....” Bria said impatiently, bringing her spacey companion’s attention back to their conversation once again. She was more than used to the process by now.

“Sorry, yeah. I’ll let you know,” Rylan promised. “So, uh...how’s it going there?”

Bria seemed surprised by the question but answered anyway and soon enough they had an actual conversation going. It wasn’t often they made small talk like that, but the former pilot was making a conscious effort to be more conversational with everyone she spoke to lately.

It was just one of the many tidbits of advice from Cara she was trying her best to follow -- actually talk (and more importantly, listen) to people when you’re having a conversation, speak up when you need something, don’t put yourself down, for kriff’s sake don’t go a full day without eating, and so on. Some were harder than others, some felt familiar once she began to practice them, some were going to take a lot more time to become real habits. But she could feel all of them helping build her confidence, bringing her back to life, even if just barely.

It had only been a few months, so there hadn’t yet been drastic changes to her moods or her overall outlook on life because, as Cara preached, it wouldn’t happen overnight, but even the rest of the crew could tell when Rylan had a better day than usual. And more often than not, those days occurred when she’d spent more time with the Alderaanian. It may have been a coincidence, or it may have been simply that she found Cara easier to talk to than pretty much anyone else alive. She still stuttered and stammered her way through the harder conversations and clammed up when the subject of the war was brought up at all, but for the most part they were able to talk like any friends would. Ry was in awe of the way Cara seemed to effortlessly navigate the line between being kind to her when she needed it and tough on her when she deserved it. She would always have the right words of comfort ready when the Corellian was spiraling, but she also wasn’t about to let her get away with any “self-pitying bantha shit,” as she called it.

For as much as Rylan seemed to be making progress in everyday life, though, the project of getting back to flying was still stuck in a holding pattern. Cara had encouraged her a couple of times just to try sitting in the pilot’s seat of the attack shuttle while the _Enigma_ was floating harmlessly in space, but that idea had only resulted in full-on panic attacks. The moment she sat down and began looking around at everything, grasping the steering handles and looking out the viewport at the endless void, her recurring nightmare began anew. She felt every bit of the fear she’d been clinging to since Fondor, heard the panicked screams of her long-dead comrades ringing in her ears. It only took seconds for it to overwhelm all her senses and render her mind -- and much of her body -- useless.

But she still wanted to try, so Cara had prepared a few new strategies to attempt after her morning lessons with Ishti. The first of those ideas was to try to get Rylan to sit in the seat while they were safely on the ground in broad daylight. The second was to utilize the more spacious cockpit of the _Enigma_ itself, as opposed to the close quarters of the one in the shuttle, so that the Corellian might have more room to breathe. Dalla hadn’t been crazy about the idea when Cara had privately brought it up to her but eventually relented, “as long as she doesn’t throw up in my seat.”

Upon hearing that stipulation, Rylan had pointed out that throwing up had never been a symptom of her anxiety, but the moment she actually sat down in the chair it was all she could think about.

From her own spot in the co-pilot’s seat, Cara saw the queasy look on her friend’s face and immediately deployed her next tactic to deter the inevitable panic attack: distraction.

“Alright, you’re there, now let’s talk about something else,” she advised. “Don’t think about where you are or anything that’s happened when you’ve sat in one of these seats.”

Rylan fought hard to listen but found the advice rather confusing. “How am I supposed to focus on flying if I’m talking about something else?”

“Flying is not the point of this exercise, Killis. We’re just literally trying to get you to sit in the chair,” Cara said with her unique combination of sternness and helpfulness. “Now come on, talk about something different. Tell me about your girl.”

“Who, Bria?” the Corellian asked stupidly, as if she might have had more than one girl.

“Is that what she’s called? I’ve never heard you use her name before.”

Ry didn’t think that was true, but she couldn’t be sure. They had never really talked about her...relationship...and any time the other two members of the crew brought it up they usually just jokingly referred to Bria as “the wife.”

“Well I....didn’t think you cared,” she said honestly, feeling her heart starting to beat faster as her hands gripped the armrests of the seat tighter.

“Just...pretend I do for the sake of the activity, okay?” the Alderaanian said, trying her hardest to keep the conversation moving and Ry’s mind away from where she actually was (the latter a task that took absolutely no effort in any other setting, ironically). “What’s she like? How’d you meet her?”

“W-we grew up on Corellia together. Sort of. We were both scrumrats. After the w-- after....” Rylan sighed heavily and squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to stay focused after almost bringing up the war. She rephrased her answer. “Later I met her again on Naboo and we’ve been together ev-ever since.”

“And you love her?”

Later Ry would realize that she shouldn’t have been surprised anymore when Cara casually dropped big questions like bombs, but in the moment that one had the desired effect of completely flustering her.

“What--I mean, I...well, yeah, sure. Sure, I love her,” she said with all the conviction of a wet buckwheat noodle.

“You are so full of shit.” Cara could barely stifle a laugh.

“I’m not.”

“You are!”

Rylan groaned with frustrated embarrassment. “How is this supposed to help me fly again?”

“Well, this wasn’t really what I had in mind for the exercise, honestly,” Cara said, but chose not to point out that they were in fact now having a conversation and Ry didn’t appear to be losing her cool about where she was. “Didn’t realize you had shit to work out in your love life too. Unfortunately I can’t help you with that.”

“I don’t have shit to work out!” the Corellian protested.

“Killis. What did I tell you about being honest with yourself?”

“To...do it?”

Cara couldn’t fight the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes. To do it. So, honestly, do you love her?”

Suddenly Rylan was fidgeting in the pilot’s seat, but no longer out of panic about being there. Suddenly that didn’t matter, because the only thing that did was Cara’s probing stare.

“I...it’s....it’s not about that,” she said quietly.

“What’s it about then?”

“I don’t know, I mean...maybe it used to be like that but....” Ry looked around as if the words she needed were written somewhere in the cockpit. “She’s just...safe. You know?”

“I do not, no,” Cara replied, not completely honestly. She had to keep her talking, after all.

The mechanic sighed deeply and found a spot on the control panel to stare at. Cara was easy to talk to when the mood was light, but she was about to bring it firmly into a dark territory. She couldn’t bear to look at her when she did.

“When I’m....not with the crew, when I’m not on a job, sometimes my brain gets...mean. Okay? It says things to me that I...don’t want to hear. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Rylan asked, still afraid to look up at the Alderaanian.

“I think I do, yeah,” Cara said in a soft, sympathetic voice.

“And so with Bria....I can just look at her and remember, ‘Someone cares. You can’t listen to that.’ So I don’t listen. See? She’s safe, she...she keeps me safe.” _Safe from myself_ , she thought with a shake of her head. “And I dunno, maybe that does mean I love her, maybe we love each other in our own screwed-up way, but....for now she’s just...enough.”

Rylan sat back in her chair and closed her eyes as a long silence fell over them. It was almost humorous. Cara’s “exercise” of getting her to talk had actually done the trick of keeping her mind off of where she was, but it had taken a conversation she would have rather avoided entirely, one that was likely to leave her just as messed up for the rest of the day as a panic attack would have.

At least, that might have been the case, had Cara not broken the silence and offered her a way out.

“Alright. Now you ask me something.”

“What?” Rylan felt like she’d just gotten whiplash with how quickly the other topic had been discarded.

“I made you talk, now you make me. Ask me anything, I’ll answer,” Cara promised, reclining in the seat with her boots up on the control panel.

Ry was no good at thinking of questions to ask people, she’d realized once the Alderaanian had suggested she start doing that. Except when it came to Cara. She’d found there was nothing she didn’t want to know about the woman.

But for whatever reason, her stupid brain went right to what she’d witnessed that morning and got stuck there.

“Have you and Ish...?” she began, hoping Cara would fill in the blank at the end of her implied question.

No such luck.

“Have me and Ish what?” the enforcer responded with feigned innocence.

“I mean have you...you know...?”

“If you want me to answer you gotta say it,” Cara told her. “That’s how the talking thing works, remember?”

Rylan made a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl. She wanted to take it back and ask something different instead but she knew she wouldn’t get away with that.

“Have you s...slept together?” she managed to get out, suddenly not sure if she really wanted the answer.

Cara stared at her, dark eyes squinting in thought as if she had to really ponder the answer.

“What do you care?” she asked finally with an almost offended tone, again, faked.

“I..I don’t, I just...know what she’s like and I see you guys laughing and stuf--”

“Would it bother you if we did?”

“What? No, I don’t care. You can do whoever you like,” Ry said, immediately growing red upon realizing her slip-up. “I-I mean... _whatever_ you like. You can do--it’s...your life, I don’t care.”

Cara had to bite back laughter at the former pilot’s discomfort. “Hmm. Good to know.”

“Wait, but you said you’d answer.”

“And you said you don’t care.”

“Yeah, but--”

“You are so easy to mess with, you know that?” the enforcer said, no longer able to contain her laughter.

It wasn’t exactly what Ry had had in mind when she thought about wanting to be the one to make Cara laugh, but she’d take it.

“Oh, you’re...you’re having fun, is that it?” she said, involuntarily joining in the laughter. “You’re having a good chuckle at my expense?”

“Yep,” Cara admitted. “And look at that, so are you.”

She smiled and Rylan felt her heart flutter, an unexpected feeling but one far more welcome than the dangerously rapid beating it usually performed when she found herself in a cockpit.

“Yeah...how ‘bout that...” she said, tearing her eyes away from Cara’s to look around at her surroundings. For the first time she let herself really see everything. The dials and switches, the steering yoke, the monitors, the little personal decorations Dalla kept everywhere. It looked nothing like the cockpit of her old X-wing. There was nothing to be scared of here. Nothing could hurt her.

“No.” Cara’s voice broke through her silent revelation.

“No what?” she asked.

“Me and Ishti. We haven’t...I mean, we’re not going to...you know,” the Alderaanian said, uncharacteristically timid.

“Oh,” Rylan replied, slightly surprised but also inexplicably relieved. “Don’t sleep with crewmates, huh?”

She smirked at the other woman, but Cara just pursed her lips and nodded slowly.

“Something like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot how fun this was to write when I was really into it. Would love to hear other people's opinions! Holler at me on tumblr if you're into that @chippingthegoalkeeper


	6. Who, What, Where

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't love the Alphabet Squadron books but they did inspire the beginning of this chapter so that time wasn't a total loss.

“So, wait, is it how you _think_ you’ll die or how you _want_ to die?”

Dalla sighed exhaustedly at Ishti’s question, positive that she had in fact explained the parameters of the Who, What, Where game to the crew already. Maybe if she’d done it _before_ they’d started drinking it would have actually sunk in.

“Whatever you think is most likely,” she clarified. “ _Who_ do you want to be notified of your death first, _what_ kills you, and _where_ does it happen?”

“This is what you guys did to pass the time?” Cara asked with an amused scoff. “You pilots are morbid as all hell.”

“Don’t look at me, we never played it,” Rylan said, raising her hands defensively. The Twi’lek captain had introduced the game as a time passing activity her squadron had used during the war, claiming it was common practice for pilots to play over comms on long, boring solo trips through hyperspace. But Rogue Squadron had never taken part as far as the Corellian knew.

She didn’t love the premise but she wasn’t going to make a fuss. They needed something new and interesting to talk about on the way to Nar Shaddaa. The crew was finally getting around to its last job before taking some vacation. It had taken longer than originally planned to build up their respective savings -- since their high-paying gig from Kessel had been postponed indefinitely -- and they were soon to get some well-earned downtime.

Rylan wasn’t sure she was really looking forward to that time off, though. The last several months had been good for her. She was more easily taking part in the group’s activities and entertainment, and making the smallest steps toward being able to fly again. The good days were starting to outnumber the bad ones. Both were still far outnumbered by the just okay days, but that felt like a small triumph in itself. With everything going well, she was nervous about going home and disrupting the patterns she’d gotten used to. What if it set her back? And what if it was only the proximity to a certain Alderaanian that was really the secret?

She tried to put those questions out of her mind as they all sat around in the common area of the ship and she listened to Dalla give her answers to who, what, and where.

“Who, of course, would be Timber,” she said, naming her on-again-off-again boyfriend on Takodana. Currently they were on, and the crew collectively hoped it would stay that way for her sake. “What...probably some firefight I have no business getting involved in at my old age. Where, over Ryloth.”

The rest of the crew voiced their agreement with her optimistic outlook. If any of them was smart enough to avoid the misfortune of dying young, it would be Dalla.

Ishti had an equally honest response, although a wildly different one.

“For me the what will probably be getting blasted by the spouse of one of my many lovers,” the Theelin said arrogantly and the rest couldn’t help but laugh. “Where is anyone’s guess. Although statistically speaking, probably Coruscant.”

“It’s a wonder you haven’t died there already,” Cara quipped, and Ishti winked at her.

“Mmm, but the who...that’s the juicy part...” she said, stroking her chin thoughtfully before coming up with an answer. “Oh, definitely that Zabrak on Alzoc III.”

“What Zabrak on Alzoc III?” Dalla asked.

“You know, the one from that job where we almost had to dump the cargo. Never seen a man so...submissive....”

The others groaned collectively. Rylan in particular took offense.

“ _That’s_ who you want to be the first person that gets told you’re dead?”

“Absolutely,” the Theelin said with complete confidence. A sly grin crossed her face. “Gotta make him think about me one last time. Why, you got a better answer?”

Ry shrugged. “Well, obviously--”

“Bria.” The other three cut her off in unison.

“I mean yeah, I...don’t really know anybody else, right? And if it happens anytime soon, you three will probably already be aware.”

“If not also dead,” Cara added.

“Alright but say we’re not dead and we don’t already know,” Dalla suggested, veering slightly from the parameters of the game. “Which of us would you want told first?”

Ishti scoffed. “Please, that’s obviously me.”

“Yeah right, we’ve known each other the longest,” the Twi’lek protested.

“Actually...” Cara began to plead her own case, but Rylan had grown tired of them all answering for her.

“Actually, you can all get bent,” she blurted, and the rest of them let out a chorus of “ooohhh”s.

The Theelin slicer slid over on the couch they shared and let her fingers dance across the Corellian’s shoulder.

“I like this new feisty Ry we’ve got on our hands...” she said with a coy smirk.

“Just...keep those hands to yourself, Ish,” Dalla advised, seeing the alarming shade of red rising into Rylan’s cheeks. In her past life, Ry would have welcomed that kind behavior, and in fact had been the instigator of it more often than not, but now such brazen advances only made her squirm.

“I’ll try,” Ishti said, winking at the mechanic.

“Okay Ry, keep going,” Cara said, sensing the possibility of a meltdown. “What and where.”

“Uhh okay. What kills me...”

“Heart attack in the cockpit,” Ishti said through a faked cough.

“No!” Rylan exclaimed, and Ish made a gesture toward Cara as if to say _back me up here_.

But the Alderaanian just shook her head.

“No she’s right, she’s doing good,” she said, nodding at Ry and taking a sip of her drink.

“Thank you,” the Corellian said, then turned to the slicer. “May I answer one thing on my own now at least?”

“Be my guest.”

As soon as she had permission to answer, Rylan realized she had no idea what to say. She racked her brain for plausible but not overly morbid ways for her to die. Finally her eyes landed on the red and white astromech droid standing idly nearby.

“Alright, where. Somewhere in deep space after we’ve had a malfunction,” she said. “What. Pretty sure Arf kills me in my sleep.”

The sentient members of the crew laughed uproariously, and the droid, not powered down as she’d assumed, grunted a quip along the lines of “you’ll be lucky if you’re asleep,” which only led to more laughter.

“Might as well get that call in to Bria now, I don’t think you’re gonna make it through the night,” Dalla cracked.

“Let’s be honest, he’ll probably be responsible for all of our deaths,” Ishti added.

When the jokes and giggles died down it was Cara’s turn to determine who, what, and where. Ry listened intently to her answers, as she always did when the enforcer spoke.

“Where is most likely some backwater planet with lots of unsanctioned fights. What, of course, picking an unsanctioned fight with the wrong asshole who doesn’t appreciate getting beat by a girl,” the former shock trooper said and again the crew found that very believable. “Who....that’s tough. If not one of you, then probably Mando. Gotta let him know I won’t be around to save his ass anymore.”

Rylan and Dalla nodded quietly, recognizing the name of the friend she’d helped with “some trouble” on a couple of occasions.

“Boring!” Ishti declared. “Too boring, you can’t end the game like that. Give us something better, something juicy.”

“Like what? I don’t have that many friends. Or...random lovers with vengeful spouses.”

“Okay but she’s right, even Ry has someone more significant than just some guy you’ve helped a couple times,” Dalla pointed out and Rylan threw up her hands, offended at being the baseline of patheticness.

The jokes and banter began to flow, for once at Cara’s expense, until it was revealed that she had no idea where she’d be going once they parted for their time off.

“Well you’re always welcome to come with me and get into some trouble,” Ishti offered with another flirtatious wink.

Cara shook her head adamantly. “Not a chance. I want some actual peace and quiet for my vacation this time around.”

Rylan had had enough to drink that she couldn’t stop herself from making an offer of her own.

“There’s nowhere more peaceful than Naboo,” she said. “You can come back with me if you want.”

For a moment the Alderaanian just stared back at her with an unreadable expression, and Rylan began to worry she was about to suggest that that was the stupidest idea she’d ever heard.

Instead she cocked an eyebrow and said, “Not sure spending a month as your third wheel is a much better alternative.”

Ry could have let it go with that but for some reason felt the urge to plead her case.

“It wouldn’t be like that,” she said. “I’ve got an extra room you can have if you want it, but there’s plenty of places you can just rent one. I mean it’s...it’s a big planet, you don’t have to be there with me...necessarily.”

She would have preferred it that way of course, still worried about how she would fare without Cara around, but she didn’t want to push it. She watched as the enforcer bit her lip in thought for what felt like much longer than just the couple seconds it was.

“Alright,” Cara finally said. “But if this place sucks I’m calling Ish.”

The Theelin took on a begging posture as she turned to Rylan.

“Oh please screw this up, Killis.”

~

Ishti’s words echoed through Rylan’s mind as she and Cara made their way out of the Theed spaceport and into the early evening Naboo sun. She didn’t want to screw this up, but it seemed almost inevitable.

They’d become good friends on the job, in the close proximity of the ship, but would that friendship translate to their lives outside the crew? Of course not, she thought. How could it? Cara was a thrill-seeker, a fiery spirit that wouldn’t be tamed, and Ry....well, she was about as far from that as possible at this point in her life.

She gave it a week at best before the Alderaanian called up the slicer for a better deal.

As usual, Cara sensed the discomfort in her silence as they marched side by side from the spaceport in the direction of her home.

“What’s wrong?” she asked simply.

“Nothing,” Rylan answered automatically, then sighed as she felt more than saw Cara’s disapproving glare at that response. “I’m just...I dunno. Maybe you shouldn’t have come here.”

“You want me to go?” Cara stopped walking and pointed back toward the spaceport with her thumb. Ry walked a few steps on her own before realizing.

“Wha-- no, I-I don’t want that, I just think...I don’t know, that you’re gonna be bored,” she mumbled. “I’m not exactly the most exciting person to hang out with.”

“You think I haven’t learned that already?” the enforcer joked, and Rylan frowned in response. Cara laughed to herself then threw a strong arm around the Corellian’s shoulders to resume walking. “Relax, okay laser brain? That’s all I’m here to do too. Just have a nice, quiet vacation with my friend.”

Ry wasn’t sure whether the word or the touch was more comforting, but together they did the job of easing her mind. At least, until they got to her street and she suddenly remembered a promise to Bria that she’d broken unintentionally.

“Ah, kriff it.”

“What?”

“Forgot to call and tell her we were coming,” she explained, and Cara laughed at her again.

“You know, once we get you back to flying I think the next project is going to have to be just ‘remembering things,’” she teased. “But I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you anyway.”

The two of them continued on and soon came to Rylan’s small, nondescript house, which Cara sarcastically labeled “cute.” The Corellian punched in the code to unlock the door and showed her guest inside, surprised to find the place dark and seemingly empty.

“Bria?” she called out. “I’m home...sorry I forgot to call...”

No response.

“Is she here?” Cara wondered aloud.

“Guess she’s out,” Rylan speculated. Bria had friends all over the city. If she wasn’t expecting Ry to be home, which she wasn’t, there was a good chance she was out somewhere with them. “Come on, I’ll show you the room and then I’ll call her.”

She led Cara to the guest room, which was mercifully clean and free of too much odd clutter, then went to put her bag down in her own room. But instead she dropped it where she stood the moment she pushed the button to open the door.

Because Bria wasn’t out with her friends. She was there, in their bed. And she wasn’t alone.

The sound of the door wooshing open caught the attention of the red-headed woman and the man with her. Bria yelped in surprise and covered herself quickly, before realizing it wasn’t a stranger that had just entered her room.

“Ry!” she exclaimed, scrambling out of bed with a sheet covering herself as the man sat there dumbfounded. “I-I can explain...”

Rylan was frozen. She stared at the spectacle in front of her, trying her damnedest to interpret what was happening, how it was happening. Bria was talking but she couldn’t hear her. It was all a muffled blur, just like her dream of Fondor. She fought through it, willed herself back into the moment.

“Get out,” she managed to say, staring at the middle distance between herself and the other woman. “Both of you. Don’t ever come back.”

Bria began to protest, and at the same moment Rylan felt someone behind her.

“She said, get the hell out,” Cara said, with the same hard voice she used to threaten would-be trouble makers on the job.

“What the hell is this? Who the fuck are you?” Bria asked incredulously.

The enforcer stepped in front of Rylan, blaster in hand. “I’m the one who’s not gonna tell you again. Get. Out.”

The man promptly did as he was told, slipping by the newcomers with his pants only half on before hustling out the front door. Bria hesitated, tried once more to speak to Rylan, and was cut off by the sound of the blaster cocking. Finally she relented, grabbing her clothes from the floor but not bothering to put them on before leaving with the sheet. Cara strode to the front window to make sure they were really leaving but Ry was rooted to her spot in the doorway, still staring, still stuck.

Her legs gave out suddenly and she collapsed against the wall, sliding down to a sitting position before burying her face in her folded arms as they rested on her knees. She felt like she was crashing again. Or maybe like the sky was the thing falling this time, crushing her under an impossible weight. Either way, she was suffocating.

Until Cara returned to her side.

The Alderaanian said nothing, just sat down beside her and placed a soothing hand on her back. Rylan began to sob, against her own will, and Cara moved the hand to her opposite shoulder and pulled her closer. She held her silently, protectively, even after the sobs gave way to deep, shuddering breaths.

“I thought she was....safe,” Rylan muttered through the tears. “I thought...she cared...”

Cara shook her head sadly. For once she didn’t have the words to help her friend. She could only hope that Ry could feel how sorry she was, how much she wished she could take her pain away. How much _she_ cared.

They sat there that way for a long while, until the sun went down outside and left the house in total darkness. At that point Cara released the Corellian carefully and stood.

“Be right back,” she promised, and left her alone there on the floor. Rylan watched as she went to the kitchen and began opening cabinets, inspecting the insides of each until finally finding whatever it was she was looking for. “Aha! At least that bitch left some goodies behind.”

“Huh?”

Cara returned to stand in front of her and held up a rather large bottle of liquor.

“Bet this cost a good chunk of credits,” she said, then extended her empty hand to her friend. “Come on. Let’s get fucked up.”

Rylan allowed herself to be dragged from the floor to the steps in front of the house, where they sat and drank and talked by the light of the moons. She gave Cara the full version of her story with Bria, throwing in more and more curses about the woman as the alcohol worked its way to her brain.

At a certain point the realization hit her that it wasn’t really even the loss of Bria that she was upset about, but rather the betrayal. The one person she’d counted on for years to be there for her, to care when no one else did, had never really been there for her at all. Surely it was impossible to do something so cruel to a person you truly cared about.

The Corellian was thankful beyond words that Cara had accepted the invitation to come to Naboo with her. She couldn’t be sure she’d even make it through the next week without her, but luckily she’d never have to find out. The Alderaanian listened to all her stories and complaints and laments, appearing to grow just as upset as Rylan was herself, if not more so.

But eventually the liquor took them both from sad and angry to amused and angry. They took turns coming up with cleverly rude names to call the red-haired woman, made plans to “burn all her shit -- no really, all of it” the next day, and even thought out loud about what they’d do if they ever saw her again.

“She better be getting her sorry ass off this world, that’s all I know,” Cara stated soberly despite the copious amounts of alcohol in her system.

Rylan laughed, not at all soberly. “Why?”

“Because if I ever see her again....I may just kill her,” she confessed, looking at the Corellian with an unfamiliar emotion on her face. “You were just starting to get the light back in your eyes. I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself if I ever see the person responsible for making it go away again.”

“Oh...” was all Rylan was capable of saying. Between the admission, the look in Cara’s eyes, and the inebriated state of her own brain, there was no chance of coming up with anything more than that. Her mind raced in confusing circles as the moment dragged on and on.

Then a burp escaped her lips and Cara’s eyes rolled nearly into the back of her head.

“Nice,” she said, then stood up and grabbed the bottle they’d emptied. “Let’s go see if there’s more where this came from, shall we?”

They retreated to the kitchen on unsteady legs and the Alderaanian, having forgotten precisely where the first bottle had come from, began anew the task of rummaging through the cabinets. While she searched, Rylan’s mind wandered, remembering some actually good moments with Bria in that very room. And some not so good ones. Like the one they’d shared the day she had taken off with the crew on their most recent string of jobs. Ry had brought up the question of Bria joining them, like Dalla had suggested, but the red-headed woman had flatly refused, even when the mechanic pointed out that it would mean they would have more time together.

But Bria had never been interested in more time with her. And in that moment, Ry realized she’d even been wrong about why the woman had wanted her to call when she was coming home.

She gripped the counter with both hands for balance and made a sound that Cara interpreted as her being about to throw up.

“You gonna make it?”

Rylan shook her head dejectedly. “I should have known,” she said. “The signs...they were all there.”

It took a second for Cara’s brain to catch up with the sudden change in mood, but once it did she was right by her side, ready to catch her when her legs began to wobble again.

“Hey. This is not your fault,” she said, but Rylan nodded adamantly in disagreement. “It’s not. Don’t do that to yourself. You’ve been doing everything right. This was all her.”

She gently turned her friend around so she could lean against the counter with her back, then stood next to her in the same fashion.

The moment her guiding hands left Rylan’s forearms, the Corellian desperately wished for them come back. Cara’s hands were rough when they had to be, they were capable of great violence, she knew. But whenever they had touched her, they felt nothing but soft, nothing but comforting. No one else had ever touched her that way.

“I didn’t do everything right. I was wrong about her,” Rylan slurred, turning slowly toward the other woman. “She never cared. Not like you...”

She looked up from the Alderaanian’s hands and met her eyes, realizing just how empty she felt, how lonely she was and had been for years, even with Bria around. But she could change that, for a night at least. All she had to do was be brave.

Rylan leaned in, reaching for Cara’s waist with her hand, and for her lips with her own. An instant before they could connect, Cara turned her head away.

“I don’t think you want to do that...” she said, her voice barely audible.

“I do,” Rylan argued, practically whispering in her ear.

“No,” Cara said. She took Ry’s hand from her own waist and guided it back to her side. “You’re hurt. And you’re drunk. And you’ll regret it in the morning.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you, Ry. And I know what this is.” She sighed sadly. “It doesn’t turn out well for people like you.”

“People like me?”

“Yeah. Good people.”

Rylan shook her head and leaned in again. “I’m not so good.”

Cara put a hand on her chest and pushed her away gently.

“Yes you are. I’m not gonna let you forget that,” she said with a finality that even Ry, as wasted as she was, could understand.

The Corellian exhaled deeply and stood up as straight as she could.

“Well,” she said, trying to mask the bitter pain in her voice. “Guess I better just go to bed then.”

“That’s a good idea,” Cara said. “Only maybe...the couch instead.”

Rylan tilted her head in confusion before remembering what she’d witnessed in her own bed just hours earlier. She rapped her knuckles on the counter and pointed drunkenly at the other woman.

“Always lookin’ out for me, that Cara Dune.”

She stumbled to the couch and collapsed there, falling asleep before she could even take off her boots.


	7. Something Else

The first coherent thought in Rylan’s mind when she woke up on her couch the next morning was that her head felt like someone had poured a duracrete mixture in through her ear and let it harden there.

The second thought was that she had no recollection of crashing on the couch, but she was pretty sure she was not the one responsible for the glass of water on the table or the neat way her boots sat nearby.

An involuntary groan escaped from somewhere deep inside her, and she heard a familiar chuckle from the kitchen.

“So you _are_ alive,” Cara said.

Rylan groaned again, voluntarily this time as it seemed to be the only sound she was capable of making.

“I’ll take that as a maybe.”

Somehow the Corellian managed to roll over onto her back and cover her face with her hands. The events of the previous evening flooded into her mind. Some of them, anyway. Parts of the night were blurry, but she distinctly remembered coming home to find Bria, crying in Cara’s arms, and drinking on the front steps. Aside from the obvious hangover and general heartsickness, she had another awful feeling in her gut, as if something regretful had happened during one of those blurry parts.

She peeked through her fingers and saw the Alderaanian standing over her, a cup of steaming hot caf in her hand.

“Hi. You mind makin’ some room there?” she said, and sat down where Rylan’s head had been once she was able to finally pull herself to a sitting position.

That didn’t last long, as the solid brick that was her head somehow grew heavier with the new elevation, and she fell back down on Cara’s lap. The enforcer shook her head and looked down at her with an amused face. Rylan began to groan again before finally finding the strength to actually speak.

“How are you not dying?” she asked hoarsely, and her friend laughed.

“I was just getting started last night, I feel fine,” Cara boasted, resting one arm across the back of the couch. She smiled softly at the Corellian and Ry felt her stomach churn, not with alcohol-related sickness but with the same bad feeling as before.

She looked up into Cara’s dark brown eyes for answers but didn’t quite find them.

“I did something shitty last night, didn’t I?” she asked quietly.

Cara’s smile faded and she took a deep breath before shaking her head.

“No,” she said, her free hand making its way to Ry’s forehead to gently push some stray blonde hairs away from her eyes. “You tried to do something stupid and I wouldn’t let you. But you didn’t do anything shitty.”

Rylan wanted to ask what stupid thing she had tried, but the touch rendered her brain useless just long enough to forget to do so.

“Well. Thank you for that,” she said instead. “Thank you for...so many things.”

She still didn’t remember everything from the previous night, but what Cara had done for her over the past day was only a small fraction of the things she needed to thank the woman for. Since they’d been reunited she had done nothing but help the sad, sorry mechanic try to get her life back on track. She’d been incredibly patient in doing so, and unbelievably kind. What Rylan had ever done to deserve a friend like her, she didn’t think she’d ever understand. She could only begin to show her appreciation, and hope that one day she could figure out a way to repay her.

“Don’t mention it,” Cara said, continuing to stroke her hair absentmindedly. Rylan closed her eyes at the soothing sensation of it, feeling the heaviness begin to melt away.

“So are....are you gonna call Ish?” she asked after a moment, fearing that the dramatics of the evening before might have changed Cara’s mind about spending her time off there. But the Alderaanian chuckled and shook her head again.

“I haven’t even been here for a day, Ry. Haven’t seen anything besides this sad little house,” she said. “And anyway...don’t think you’re really in any shape to be left alone.”

“Yeah...”

Rylan couldn’t argue, but that only sounded like yet another reason to leave. Who in their right mind would want to spend their vacation babysitting a fully-grown adult?

“So...you better get to giving me the grand tour,” Cara suggested, answering that question definitively.

~

Rylan, it turned out, was a pretty terrible tour guide.

She had technically been a resident of Theed for years, sure, but by the nature of her job she hadn’t actually spent a lot of time there. And she definitely hadn’t spent much time getting acquainted with this tourist destination or that point of interest. Most of the landmarks she did know were just places where battles and other events of the Clone Wars had taken place -- not exactly the most appealing destinations for a couple of veterans.

Nevertheless, she was determined to make Cara’s stay on Naboo as interesting -- and as...un-babysitting-like -- as possible. It was the least she could do. When they weren’t hanging out at the house or with the rest of the city’s lowlifes in one bar or another, they tried to enjoy the Lake Country. But they both agreed the outdoors were overrated, even if it was beautiful.

For the first couple of weeks, Ry had needed the activity far more than Cara. When they weren’t keeping themselves busy, her mind had time to drift again to all the signs she’d missed, all the time she’d wasted stupidly believing Bria really felt something for her. After a while though, the Corellian realized it wasn’t worth dwelling on any longer. She was there, in her home, with Cara. And everything was okay. It felt ridiculous then, mourning the loss of someone who’d never actually cared for her, when the one person who did care enough to help her through anything was right there in front of her. So, she quit.

The two of them didn’t talk about it until a week before they were to meet back up with the crew. They were perfectly content having fun together without talking about the big stuff, but a seemingly innocuous conversation while strolling around town eventually took a turn.

Rylan had accidentally led Cara to a tourist site after all, as they came across a memorial statue of one of Naboo’s past queens near Theed Royal Palace. She recognized the name on the plaque attached and pointed at the marble likeness of the beautiful young woman.

“You know, there’s a local legend that Queen Amidala was Princess Leia’s real mother,” she said, thinking the tidbit would be of interest to a fellow Alderaanian.

“What?” Cara said, looking at Rylan as if she thought she was having her leg pulled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

The Corellian shrugged. “It’s just what people say, I dunno what to tell you.”

“No way. I mean, it is true that she was adopted, but I’m pretty sure something that big would be more than just a local rumor.”

“Whatever you say,” Ry conceded as they continued walking. “I knew her, you know?”

“The queen?”

“No. Leia. She was...probably the most impressive person I’ve ever met,” she said, then grinned shyly at Cara. “Aside from you, anyway.”

The enforcer scoffed. “Please. Even I know that last part’s a lie.”

“Okay, fine. But a well-intentioned one,” Rylan said with a smile. It quickly faded as she thought of Leia. Or General Organa, as she had known her. “She never did talk about Alderaan...”

Cara’s head drooped sadly and studied her boots as they walked.

“I’d imagine that’s pretty common,” she said, with obvious experience.

Rylan’s heart felt heavy as she watched her friend grow quiet. She directed them toward a bench on the sidewalk and sat down. Cara sat as well, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped together.

“Do you want to talk about it?” the Corellian asked, and the other woman sighed.

“Not especially,” Cara said. She turned to see a concerned frown on Rylan’s face. “Someday, Ry. Someday I’ll be ready to talk about it.”

Even a decade after her world’s destruction, even with years of dealing with that trauma, Cara still wasn’t ready to talk about it with someone she obviously trusted. Rylan realized then that despite the gains she’d made in dealing with her own shit, it would still be a long time before she was truly healed. And there was nothing wrong with that.

“Okay. I’ll be here,” she promised.

“I know.”

They smiled softly at each other for a long moment, each secretly appreciating the way the setting sun sparkled in the other’s eyes.

“Can I just ask one thing?” the Corellian requested, unable to contain her curiosity.

“I think you’ve earned that, sure.”

She bit her lip, having a momentary second thought, before asking, “Do you miss it?”

It had been a long time since they’d discussed Cara’s Alderaanian origins. The night they met on Crait it had been brought up and the shock trooper had revealed that she’d left her home world well before its destruction. She’d never fit in there, never felt like her combative personality was consistent with Alderaan’s peaceful ideals. They hadn’t talked in detail about the subject since that night, both focused more on dealing with the Corellian’s issues, but Rylan just had to know.

“Every day,” Cara said simply. Ry didn’t know what to say in response, other than maybe to apologize for having brought it up. But she didn’t get the chance, as the Alderaanian quickly turned the conversation around on her. “Do you miss Bria?”

“Who?”

Cara laughed, and Rylan suddenly realized she wanted nothing more than to hear that very sound every day for the rest of her life.

“I can’t decide if it’s funnier to take that as a joke or to believe that you actually forgot who she was.”

“Equally plausible, right?” she said with a grin, then shook her head. “Truth is....she never was worth missing.”

They said nothing more. Cara nodded and sat back on the bench, and together they watched the sun fall below the horizon.

~

“Can I ask you something?”

Cara didn’t look up upon hearing Rylan’s sudden request. It was their last night on Naboo and she was hard at work preparing them one final home-cooked meal before they had to go back to ration bars and unsatisfactory space food.

“That does seem to be one of the pillars of our relationship, yes.”

That response temporarily distracted the Corellian with wondering what the other pillars were, but she shook it off as she lifted herself to sit on the counter. There had been something on her mind for weeks, and she felt like she was running out of time to ask about it.

“What did I do?” she asked, and Cara looked up from chopping things to raise an eyebrow at her. “That first night we were here. I remember waking up and feeling like I did something wrong but you just said I’d tried to do something stupid. What was it?”

The Alderaanian went back to chopping and Rylan silently watched her.

“Why do you want to know that now?”

“I just...don’t like not knowing.” She’d found it slightly odd that Cara had never told her what happened, considering their policy of being honest with each other. “Especially if I should be sorry about it.”

“It’s not like that,” Cara assured her. She sighed then looked up again. “You....tried to kiss me.”

Rylan felt her ears redden instantly. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” The chopping resumed.

“Well, that’s...I’m….I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay,” Cara said, then looked up with a smirk and nudged her with an elbow. “I understand the impulse.”

Rylan went from fidgeting nervously to laughing in an instant. She was in awe of Cara’s talent for doing that to her. She was in awe of everything she’d done -- helping her get her confidence back, encouraging her to keep trying to fly, staying around in her biggest time of need. And all the while she’d asked for nothing in return. It didn’t make any sense.

“Why are you doing all this?” she asked, hoping to make it make sense.

“It’s called cooking, Ry. You should try it sometime.”

“No, I mean...why have you been helping me? Why did you stay here?” Cara stopped what she was doing again and met her gaze. “You don’t have to do all this stuff for me but you just keep doing more. I don’t understand it.”

It was the Alderaanian’s turn to fidget.

“I’m your friend, that’s why,” she said, somewhat unconvincingly.

“No. Dalla’s my friend. Ishti’s my friend,” Rylan replied. “You, you’re....you’re something else...”

“Something else?”

“Yeah...” she said, searching her mind for the correct word. Cara was more than a friend, that was for sure. She was her rock, her protector, her.... _Oh_. Rylan smiled, realizing exactly what the woman in front of her was. “Yeah. I was right.”

“Right about what?”

“You. The night we met, I was right. You’re an angel.”

It wasn’t a line this time. She really believed it. There was no other explanation.

Cara’s face scrunched in curious amusement. “Are you drunk right now?”

Ry laughed, then shrugged casually. “Maybe. But I know what I’m talkin’ about.”

For that brief moment, she felt like her former self again. And the flash of the old light in her eyes certainly didn’t go unnoticed by the sharp Alderaanian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody reading this crap? I'm gonna keep posting it either way but it would be nice to know.


	8. Off Base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have we burned slowly enough?

“When were you planning on telling us?”

Ishti’s voice prompted Rylan to look up from the parts she was tinkering with on her workbench to find the Theelin and their Twi’lek captain standing over her with accusatory looks.

“Telling...you...whaaat?” she replied slowly, having no idea whatsoever what might be the cause of this sudden confrontation.

“Don’t play dumb, Killis,” Ishti advised.

“I promise you I’m not playing.”

“When were you gonna tell us about you and Cara?” Dalla asked, not clearing things up at all.

“What about me and Cara?”

“That you’re--” Ishti cut herself off in order to make a confusing yet oddly disturbing hand gesture.

Rylan diverted her eyes from it quickly.

“Um, okay, I have no idea what that is, but I assure you Cara and I are not...it.”

“Come on Ry, cut the shit,” the captain said. “This is a safe space, we’re all family here.”

“Well. No, don’t tell her _that_ ,” Ishti advised with a loud whisper, “then what they’re doing is...really fucked up.”

“Okay hold on,” Rylan said, finally coming around to realize what this was all about. “You think me and Cara are....like, together?”

“Together, doing it, whatever you wanna call it, yeah,” the Theelin confirmed. “Obviously.”

The mechanic shifted nervously in her seat. “And just what in the galaxy ever gave you that idea?”

“Literally the everything about you,” Ishti said dramatically. “What, you think we wouldn’t connect the dots? You go away on vacation together, then oops! break up with the wife. But you’re perfectly fine with that when you get back here, and meanwhile the two of you are always...looking at each other like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like...grossly,” she said with a shudder.

“Grossly?” Rylan repeated and received a confident nod in return. “And you believe this too, Dall?”

“Ry, it’s so obvious. Come on.”

The Corellian could only look between them and wait for the punchline, for one of them to admit that they were pulling a joke on her. But neither of them did.

“Well I’m sorry to ruin your fun but you’re...way off base,” she told them. “We’re not ‘together’ or ‘doing it’ or any of that.”

They stared at her together for a long moment, each squinting skeptically as she fidgeted. Finally Ishti spoke again.

”I don’t believe you.”

“Nope. Me either,” Dalla agreed instantly. They turned around in unison and went to leave her alone again.

“Damn, I was so sure she’d be the easy one to crack...” Rylan heard Ishti say as they walked out of the room, leaving her to look around in confusion and whisper to herself.

“What the fuck....”

The parts in front of her remained unfixed, as the mechanic’s mind was occupied for the next several hours with obsessing over what had spurred that unexpected conversation. Nothing had changed in the weeks since they’d returned to work. Nothing about her relationship with Cara anyway. Sure she’d been happier more often and she wasn’t dwelling on what had happened with Bria, but how that translated to them having gotten together, she didn’t get. And as for the “gross” looks they shared, she really didn’t understand where Ishti was coming from with that.

But the more she thought about it, the more she looked back over the last couple of months, the more Rylan could see how her crewmates might have gotten the wrong impression. She and Cara had in fact been getting closer since Naboo. They spent virtually all their time together -- though she would argue that was hard to avoid seeing as they were bunkmates on a crowded ship. And sure, she thought Cara was the kindest and most generous person she’d ever known and she often got lost in her smile and she went to sleep every night thinking about the time she’d laid with her head in her lap while Cara played with her hair. But that didn’t mean--

_Oh...shit._

Of course it did. Rylan had never thought about how all of that added up before. But it was obvious, just like the others had said. She was, without a doubt, falling for Cara.

If not already in deep.

~

The mechanic had to work rather hard over the next few days to keep from letting her realization about her feelings take over her mind on a constant basis. In fact she tried to put it out of her head entirely. After all, she thought, the odds of Cara feeling the same way about her were rather slim. Why would someone so amazing ever want to be with such a broken, washed up nobody?

Instead of obsessing over that, she committed herself to her attempts to get back to flying. Sitting in a cockpit was no longer a problem, and she’d been able to pilot a speeder on a couple of occasions without incident. But there was still a long way to go.

Luckily for her, on Cara’s recommendation Dalla and Ishti had picked up a very useful piece of equipment just before retrieving them from Naboo. Ry had never fully bought the assurances from her crewmates that they hadn’t straight up stolen the flight simulator from one of the space tech companies that they did the occasional legit run for, but she wasn’t going to cause a stink (it was a necessary, victimless crime if one at all). It wasn’t quite the same model she’d used as an Alliance rookie, but it was damn close. The machine -- which took up a whole corner of the cargo hold on the _Enigma_ \-- allowed Rylan to feel, see, and hear everything that she would have in a real X-wing. The battle simulations were so life-like that her first attempt at sitting through one had lasted only seconds before the anxiety took over.

But each time she’d gotten back in again it had gotten a little bit easier. She began to get a feel for the controls again, started to feel at home again, even if it wasn’t a real cockpit in a real ship.

Her latest attempt had gone particularly smoothly, as she was even able to take out a few virtual TIE fighters before getting shot down herself. And for the first time, that final result hadn’t given her shaky hands or a cold sweat.

Rylan felt like she was floating as she entered her room and saw Cara there polishing her blaster.

The Alderaanian looked up from her task and greeted her. “Hey. How’d it go?”

“Honestly? It was great,” Rylan answered, smiling as she tugged off the fingerless gloves she’d always worn while flying. “I mean, I definitely would have died, but...felt like I’m really getting there.”

“Well, you don’t have to be combat ready any time soon so I wouldn’t worry too much about that dying part.”

“Good point.”

Cara smiled warmly at her. “I’m really proud of you, Ry.”

“Ah. Thanks,” the Corellian said, scratching the back of her neck uncomfortably. Her confidence had made strides forward but that hadn’t yet fully translated to being able to take a compliment without fidgeting. “I couldn’t do it without you.”

“I know,” Cara said with a grin and a wink, and Rylan felt a familiar fluttering in her stomach.

She’d been trying to ignore that feeling since coming to her realization a few days earlier. She of course hadn’t brought up her conversation with the captain and the slicer, and Cara hadn’t given any hint that she might have had a similar one. But Ishti’s last crack about her being the easy one to get to had made her curious.

And her high from a successful fake flight made her voice that curiosity before she could stop herself.

“Say, uh...” she began, trying to sound as casual as possible as she leaned against the wall. “Did Dalla and Ishti like....confront you about anything...recently?”

“Confront me? No, why?”

“Eh, it’s-it’s nothing. They were just being weird to me the other day, I wondered if you got the same treatment.”

“Weird how?” Cara asked, and the Corellian diverted her gaze awkwardly, second-guessing her decision to bring it up. But of course she wouldn’t get away with backing out now. “Ry....”

“Well they...they seemed to think that we were, or...are? uh, t-together...” she stammered, still afraid to make eye contact.

“Huh.” The Alderaanian took in the information calmly and Rylan found herself wishing the woman didn’t have such a damn good sabacc face. “And what makes them think that?”

“I believe the phrase was ‘literally the everything’ about us.”

“I see. And what did you say?”

“That they’re way off base. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Cara repeated with a nod.

She went back to polishing and that could have been the end of it, Rylan realized, but something inside her, perhaps the fluttering from before, made her feel the need to check for sure.

“And they are...aren’t they?” she asked, causing the enforcer to look up questioningly. “Off base?”

Cara quirked an eyebrow. “Did we start dating while I wasn’t looking or something?”

“Well, no, but....”

“But?” she prompted.

“But, I...I’ve been thinkin’ about what they said and...maybe I can see how they might have come to that conclusion...”

Cara put her blaster down and looked seriously at her. “Go on.”

Rylan sighed, taking a moment to collect both her thoughts and her confidence. She had much more of one than the other, but they would both need to go equally far to get through this.

“Ever since you told me I have to start being honest with myself, I've been trying really hard to do that. It hasn’t been easy but I think I’ve done a pretty good job. Except when it comes to how I....how I feel about you...” she paused to look at the other woman and for the first time found Cara’s expression readable, somewhere between concerned and sad. She swallowed hard and continued quietly. “The truth is I’m....afraid. That’s not really a surprise I’m sure, I’m afraid of pretty much everything. But I’m so scared that if I admit to myself that I...have feelings for you, then I’ll have to face the fact that you...probably don’t feel the same way about me.”

Rylan finished her confession with her eyes on the floor and her arms crossed protectively over her chest. An uncomfortable silence filled their room, and with each passing second she felt more and more like she would have to throw herself out of the airlock to get over this humiliation.

But then Cara’s voice broke the silence with a most unexpected question.

“Why do you just assume I don’t feel the same way?”

Ry began to respond before fully processing what she’d said. “I just--well, you....wait.” She paused once she caught up. “What?”

Cara sighed as she stood up from her bed and leaned against the wall herself, mirroring the mechanic’s posture.

“You’re not the only one that hasn’t been honest with yourself about this....”

“You mean, you...you’re...” Rylan sputtered, too confused to make any type of sense. “Just...spell it out for me. Please.”

The enforcer rolled her eyes. “I have feelings for you too, you goober.”

She shook her head as she laughed to herself and finally Rylan understood. She’d been wrong, and she had never been so happy to realize it. A wide smile spread across her face.

“But...why--”

“No,” Cara said, taking a step forward to quiet her with a finger on her lips. “No questions. Not right now.”

The Corellian began to mumble something about the pillars of their relationship, but Cara quickly put a stop to it, stepping closer again and connecting them in a kiss.

It was far from the hurried, desperate kisses they’d shared during their night on Crait, when they knew a night was all they would get. This one was sweet and slow, as if they had forever to live in it before moving on to the next one.

And move on they did. Before long they found themselves floating away from the wall and toward Cara’s bunk, where they remained connected as though they had their own gravitational pull. Hands and lips roamed as clothes were lost while they reacquainted themselves with each other’s bodies after six long years.

Some time later, after exhausting themselves enough to slow down but not quite enough to fall asleep, they laid there quietly appreciating how it felt to be able to finally relax in each other’s arms. Eventually Rylan, with her head resting comfortably against Cara’s chest, began to laugh to herself.

“What are you thinking about?” the Alderaanian asked with a nudge.

“That the others are going to be insufferable when they find out about this,” Ry said, and Cara chuckled and nodded in agreement. “Oh, you know what would be funny?”

“Hm?”

“We should just not tell ‘em. But be sooo obvious about it,” she suggested. Cara laughed out loud and it took all the Corellian’s strength to keep talking rather than begin the whole activity they’d just finished over again. “Like what are they gonna do? They’ve already tried to call me out, and do you think they’ll try the same with you? No way.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re scared of you.”

“They are not.”

“No, they are, that’s why they went after me first. Thought I’d be the easy one to crack.”

They both laughed then and Cara reached for Rylan’s hand to intertwine their fingers.

“Well either way, kinda feels cruel not to tell them considering they’re pretty much the only reason it happened in the first place,” she said.

“Ugh. Fair point,” Ry conceded. She thought about it for a moment then shook her head. “Why did it take that for this to finally happen?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or are you really asking?”

“I’m asking,” the mechanic said, propping herself on her elbow to look in the other woman’s eyes. “I mean yeah, we know I have my confidence issues, but you certainly don’t. If you’ve had feelings all along, why not just tell me so I could figure my own out sooner?”

Cara shook her head and reached up to brush some unruly blonde hair away from Rylan’s eyes.

“You needed to figure it out for yourself, Ry. Plus I...thought you would need longer after the Bria thing to come around on trying something again.”

“What? I was over that before we even left Naboo.”

“You were over _her_ , sure. But that’s not the same as being over what she did to you. And being able to trust someone again.”

Cara’s face was serious and Rylan suddenly grew worried about what was being implied.

“Does that mean...do you think we shouldn’t be...” she trailed off, not sure enough about what they were or what they were doing to keep going. But she needn’t have worried.

“No,” Cara said, taking her hand again. “I just mean...if we have to take this slow from now on, I’m more than willing to do that.”

It was then that Rylan began to wonder if she was dreaming, if the perfect way it had all played out was just a product of her imagination. She thought it was the only thing that explained how she’d managed to get so lucky. But she could feel her heart beating steadily, and the warmth of Cara’s skin against hers, and she knew it was real.

Still, she had to shake her head in disbelief.

“What did I do to deserve you?”

Cara smiled before chuckling lightly. “I hate very much that the answer to that is ‘said the worst pickup line ever uttered with absolute confidence.’”

“Hey, it worked though!” Rylan replied with a laugh, thinking back to her angel line used so long ago in such a faraway hangar. “ _And_ I was right.”

“Um, if you’ll recall, it did _not_ work. But it did get my attention.”

Rylan smirked at her for a moment.

“Oh it totally worked,” she said, and Cara rolled her eyes.

“Shut up,” she muttered, then pulled her in for another endless kiss to make sure she did just that.


	9. Support

If Rylan had been made to guess at the end of that first night back on Naboo about where the next few months would take her, she most certainly would not have predicted that she would find herself happier than she’d been in years, if not her whole life.

It felt surreal, how quickly things had changed. In just a few months’ time, she’d gone from being completely unhappy in a dead-end relationship with a woman who’d probably been cheating on her for at least a year, to being absolutely in love with someone who made every day worth getting up for. There had been no need to take it slow -- Rylan trusted Cara with her life and her heart, despite how poorly the latter had been treated by the last person who had any sort of sway over it. The non-humans of the _Enigma_ crew had in fact been insufferable upon finding out their suspicions were somewhat right, but even that had only lasted a day or two (once they managed to convince Ishti in no uncertain terms that they would not be inviting her to join them for a threesome).

As if all that weren’t enough, Ry was well on her way to being back in the pilot’s seat for real, for good. Every spare moment she had not on the job and not occupied by Cara was spent in the flight simulator, until she felt comfortable enough to take a test run in the attack shuttle. Deep in the nothingness of space, under Dalla’s watchful eye in the seat behind her, she’d done it. For the first time in years, the first time since Fondor, she’d flown a real spacecraft again.

The Twi’lek had razzed her lightly for the tears of relief that fell and kept her humble by pointing out that they’d done nothing more than fly a couple laps around the _Enigma_ , but in the end the captain had patted her on the shoulder proudly, and Rylan could not have been more grateful to have the support that she did. That support had been even more apparent when they’d locked back on to the freighter and Cara was right there to greet her with a hug as she stepped off the shuttle.

She would not have to wait so long for Cara’s support this time around though, as the Alderaanian was now the one accompanying her on her latest leisurely flight. With the enforcer seated behind her in the narrow cockpit, Rylan flew the shuttle clear out of sight of the _Enigma_ and killed the engines, letting them float there in the dark void of space. She turned her seat around and was immediately met with a kiss as Cara moved from her own seat to the Corellian's lap.

“Oh, hello. No offense to Dalla but I very much prefer this method of flying,” Rylan opined.

“I heard that, you Corellian moof-milker,” Dalla’s voice replied over the ship’s comm line back to the _Enigma_.

Ry cursed, frantically spinning them around to shout back “Shut up!” before muting the comms.

“Smooth,” Cara commented.

“Let’s just be happy that happened before we said or did other things she could have heard, huh?”

“Yes, that really would have ruined the mood.”

With the mood sufficiently un-ruined and the two of them more alone than they had been at any point so far in their budding relationship, they took the opportunity to celebrate Rylan’s progress by thoroughly wearing out each other’s lips. Afterward, Cara laid her head on the Corellian’s shoulder and they sat quietly, staring out the viewport at the multitude of stars beyond the glass. Ry didn’t know how long they’d been sitting in that peaceful silence before Cara spoke, but it felt like quite a long time.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to do this today,” the Alderaanian said. “Kinda thought you might want to wait after the dream.”

Rylan smiled to herself and wrapped her arms around her even tighter. She’d been woken up the previous night by the same nightmare that had haunted her since Fondor. The usual fear and sweat and despair had been there when she woke up, but so had Cara. Her comforting touch and soothing words had calmed her down quickly, and before she knew it she’d fallen back to sleep safely in her protective arms. When they’d gotten up together later Cara asked if she wanted to talk about it -- she knew about the Corellian’s dream but hadn’t witnessed its effects in person until that point -- and Rylan shook her off, causing the enforcer to worry that the planned excursion for the day wouldn’t go well, if it went at all. But Ry was as calm as ever in the cockpit and everything seemed to be going smoothly.

“Why do you think I wanted you out here with me this time?” she said, and she could feel Cara laugh silently against her. “I can’t say it wasn’t on my mind, but...I just focused more on feeling you than feeling that.”

She reached her hand up to her shoulder, where Cara’s own supportive hand had rested for the entirety of the flight.

“Look at you, learning,” the Alderaanian said, lifting her head to smile proudly at her. “You wanna talk about it now?”

“I was hoping you’d ask,” Ry said with a nod. Cara sat up and put one arm around her shoulders, taking her hand with the other. “Don’t know if I’ve ever even talked about what actually happens in it. With anybody.”

Rylan explained her recurring dream shot for shot, including the part where she had tried to shake from her mind the first night they’d spent together, and Cara listened while stroking the back of her hand with her thumb. The former captain’s eyes glazed over as she re-lived her terrifying final battle one more time. She knew she couldn’t actually hear Tycho’s panicked voice any longer, but her brain kept trying to convince her she could, even after she finished the story.

“If I could have just...saved him...if I could have saved my wingman, then maybe we could have made a difference. Maybe it wouldn’t have messed me up so bad,” she speculated with a heavy voice. “But I wasn’t good enough, I couldn’t save him.”

“Ry, don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself,” Cara told her. “They never should have sent you guys out there without better intel. It wasn’t your fault. You hear me? It was not. Your. Fault.”

Rylan forced herself to turn her watery blue eyes to meet Cara’s. Her bottom lip quivered uncontrollably as she fought the tears away and nodded. The Alderaanian hugged her tightly and held her there until her eyes dried.

“Tell me about him.”

“Hm?”

“Your wingman,” Cara said, releasing her finally. “Tell me about him.”

“Tycho Celchu....” Rylan laughed softly at the thought of him. “What can I say? He was a lot like me, so...you probably would have liked him.”

“I don’t know about that. You were an acquired taste.”

“Oh you would have,” the Corellian assured her. “I think you would have been a fan of his big stupid mustache for sure.”

“Oh no...” Cara replied, fighting back laughter.

“Oh yes. That thing was legendary,” Ry said through a laugh of her own. “But he was...the best wingman I could have asked for. So smart in the air. Not the best pilot but he made up for it by being smart. And he knew how to keep everybody’s spirits up, even when things seemed....”

Rylan trailed off as she realized that the one time she’d most needed Tycho’s annoyingly high spirits, all she’d gotten were his screams instead. She shook her head to clear out the thought before continuing.

“He was from Alderaan, you know.”

“Really?” Cara asked, and Ry nodded. “I’m sensing a pattern here.”

The Corellian chuckled.

“Yeah. I suppose you folks bring out the best in me.” She gave the woman in her lap a brief kiss before going back to staring out the viewport. “He used to talk all the time about how beautiful it was. Tych was the only Alderaanian I’ve ever known who never stopped talking about it after it was gone. It was almost like...he was trying to convince himself that it was still out there, that he just couldn’t get back to it quite yet because he still had a job to do...”

It was Cara’s turn to grow glassy-eyed.

“I wish I could have thought like that,” she said quietly, staring down at their hands. “I never thought I’d ever want to go back after I left, but now...I’d give anything just to see it one more time.”

Rylan had never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted to be able to somehow fly that shuttle back in time to grant Cara’s wish. But no amount of modifications to the ship would ever make that possible.

The Corellian felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she thought about how much Cara had done for her over the last months, how she had helped her get back something she thought she’d lost forever. Unlike her ability to fly, though, Alderaan really was gone forever. And so was everyone Cara had ever known there, everyone she grew up with, all her family, her first loves and best friends. It seemed to Rylan like an impossible loss to get over, an insurmountable obstacle to ever feeling happiness again, and yet...somehow the woman had been able to find some level of peace with it, or a modicum of acceptance at least.

It shouldn’t have had to be that way, but there was nothing either of them could do to change it, no matter how badly Ry wanted to. For now all she could do for Cara was just be there, as she had been for her on Naboo.

Rylan pushed the dark hair from in front of the Alderaanian’s eyes and left her hand up to gently hold her face. Cara met her gaze with sad, dark eyes and she felt her own heart break inside her chest.

“I know I can never give you back what you lost, like you’ve done for me,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “But I swear Cara, I will do anything and everything that I can to help you have....the fullest life you can get. I wish I could promise you more than that but...all I know is that I’ll be here. Wherever here is.”

Cara’s eyes closed slowly as she covered the mechanic’s hand with her own. “Thank you, Ry. I know it’s probably not easy to say stuff like that.”

“Yes it is,” Rylan refuted, and Cara opened her eyes again. “I mean it all. I...I love you, Cara. All I want is for you to be happy.”

She smiled softly and the Alderaanian stared at her for a moment before a smile began to creep across her face as well. “You love me?”

Rylan nodded confidently. She’d realized it long ago but neither of them had gotten around to saying it yet. “Yeah. I do.”

Cara’s smile grew and she leaned down to kiss the Corellian sweetly.

“Then I’m already happy,” she said, and kissed her again. “I love you too, Ry.”

The sweetest words Rylan had ever heard were unfortunately followed quickly by some that immediately ruined the moment.

“Hey, uhhhh....you guys ever coming back or was this always just a long con to steal Dall’s shuttle and run away together?” Ishti wondered over the comm from the _Enigma_.

The Corellian groaned loudly.

“I thought you turned that off?” Cara said.

“I only muted our end,” Rylan explained, reaching around her to press a button on the control panel. “Do you need something, Ish?”

“Yeah, the rest of my crew,” the Theelin said. “Kessel Run’s a go.”

They half-reluctantly returned to the freighter, sad that their tender moment had been interrupted but excited that their big job was finally taking place after being put off for months. As soon as they joined the others in the common area, the crew got right to work making preparations. Ishti sat clicking and tapping away on a datapad, forging them clearance codes to be able to land on the mining planet, while Rylan and Dalla hovered over the holotable to study the star charts and readings from directly around said planet. Charting a course to and from Kessel was no simple task, and the two of them argued back and forth for a not insignificant amount of time before finally settling on the most widely-used route, winding through the middle of the Akkadese Maelstrom. They agreed it was probably the most boring way in, but definitely the most likely to make sure they were alive to carry out the job.

“What’s the big deal with this whole Kessel Run thing anyway?” Ishti asked of the infamous space route. “How hard could it be to just fly _to_ a planet? Isn’t that what lightspeed is for?”

“There’s no clear hyperspace lane that’ll take you straight to Kessel,” the captain explained. “You have to navigate around the Maelstrom--”

“And the Maw,” Rylan added.

“That huge gravity well...”

“Not to mention the other Wells...”

“Carbon bergs the size of planets...”

“And don’t even get me started on the pirates!”

“Of course, the pirates are the worst--”

“Okay, all that sounds pretty awful, so why do you two seem practically giddy?” Cara asked, eyeing the pilots suspiciously.

The Corellian and the Twi’lek shared a look and shrugged in unison.

“Because,” said Rylan.

“Because it’s the ultimate test for a pilot,” Dalla expanded. “It’s terrifying but thrilling.”

“Exactly,” the mechanic agreed.

Cara shook her head but chose not to express her opinion that they were both insane.

“I’ve heard it’s some kind of challenge to do it in less than 20 parsecs,” she said instead, turning to Dalla. “Have you ever done it in that?”

Rylan snorted. “Does this look like the _Millennium Falcon_?”

The Twi’lek glared at her. “First of all, a VCX could outrun a YT model anytime, anywhere. But no, I’ve never tried.”

“For the record, it does not,” Ry fake-whispered to Cara, answering her own question. “Much.”

“Do you believe Han Solo really did it in less than 12?” Dalla asked her suddenly.

“Less than 12? No way,” Solo’s fellow Corellian answered. She’d heard the man’s boast multiple times in person and wanted to believe it, but such a claim was surely impossible. “ _Maybe_ under 15, but not 12.”

“What would it take for this ship to do it?” Ishti inquired. “Under 20.”

Ry shrugged. “It’s not so much about the ship as it is about the route. And of course, the pilot.”

“You saying I couldn’t do it?” Dalla asked, offended.

“ _I’m_ not saying that,” Rylan said, a grin creeping onto her face. “But that asteroid field we pinged around in the Korteen system might have something to say about it.”

The Twi’lek rolled her eyes. That trip hadn’t been nearly as bad as she made it sound. “Whatever. Could you have done it?”

All eyes fixed on Rylan as she considered the question thoughtfully, trying to objectively recall her piloting skill level before the Fondor incident. It had been high, of course, but it was almost impossible to know how one’s dogfighting skills would translate to making a run like that.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “But I definitely would have been stupid enough to try.”

As the others laughed, Rylan realized that she hoped to get the chance to stupidly try someday. Just maybe not any time soon.


	10. The Kessel Run

Rylan’s leg bounced obnoxiously as she sat in the co-pilot’s seat, her eyes wide and glued to the viewport in front of her.

“You know that’s like, really fucking annoying right?” Dalla said with a nod at the rogue limb.

“Ugh, sorry,” the Corellian apologized and put her hands on her knee to stop the bouncing. “Just excited, you know? Never seen this done before.”

“Yeah well you’re not gonna see it done if you keep distracting me.”

Rylan focused then on keeping her excitement internal and non-distracting as the Twi’lek pilot weaved the _Enigma_ through the cloudy center of the Akkadese Maelstrom. So far the Kessel Run wasn’t quite as thrilling as they thought it would be. The corridor was fairly clear once you made it into the Si’Klaata Cluster, as long as the lighted channel stayed clear of too much traffic or debris from the outside. It took focus on the pilot’s part, but unless they somehow slipped into the Maelstrom itself there wouldn’t be too much to get hyped up about.

Apparently it was all still too stimulating for the bouncy Corellian, however.

“Okay, seriously?” the captain said with an impatient look in Rylan’s direction.

“What?” the mechanic asked innocently.

“You’re doing it again!”

“Not on purpose!”

“Well if you can’t control it, you gotta get out of here. I need to focus.”

“But I’m being your co-pilot,” Rylan whined.

“Don’t care. Get Arf and send him in." The Twi’lek jerked her thumb toward the back of the ship. “Go annoy your girlfriend instead.”

“But--”

“Go!”

Rylan grumbled but did as ordered. She left the cockpit bitterly and barked at R5 to join the captain, but it didn’t take long for a better mood to set in. She spotted Cara in the cargo hold, making sure the space was cleared out and clean before their upcoming pickup on Kessel. The Alderaanian didn’t notice her entrance, too caught up in the chore of sweeping the dusty compartment. As stealthily as she could, Rylan snuck up behind her and wrapped her arms around her from the back.

Cara didn’t appear startled in the least. “Hey. Thought you were co-piloting?”

The Corellian sighed and declined to release her.

“Turns out I was co-bothering,” she said, and Cara turned her head awkwardly to shoot her a questioning look. “Doesn’t matter. Dalla said to come annoy you instead, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“I would not advise that,” Cara warned lightheartedly as she turned around in Rylan’s grasp so that they were facing each other.

“Captain’s order, babe,” Rylan countered, realizing the term of endearment sounded natural despite this being the first time she’d used it. “We can’t let the crew down.”

The mechanic snatched the broom from her girlfriend’s hand and tossed it aside. As it clattered to the floor of the hold, she backed Cara up toward the wall, kissing her the whole journey there.

“Speaking of which....” Cara said, breaking out of the kiss and earning a confused look from the eager Corellian. “What’s going to happen once you’re flying again?”

“What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you going to want to be a captain yourself? Get your own ship and all that?”

“Oh. I mean, I....I hadn’t thought about that...” Rylan said, backing away with a nervous scratch of her neck. It hadn’t even occurred to her to think about that. She’d been pretty singularly focused on just being able to re-learn the skill of flying. The implications of it hadn’t crossed her mind at all. Not since the war. Back then, when she’d allowed herself to believe she’d live through the whole blasted thing, she had dreamed of having her own ship, of flying back and forth across the galaxy with her very own crew. Since the crash, though, that dream had been put away in a box in the back of her mind, never to be thought of again. Until Cara opened it. “Do you think I should?”

The enforcer shrugged casually. “I can’t tell you how to live, Ry.”

“Well, no. But wouldn’t it affect you too?” Rylan asked. “I mean if I did, you’d...you’d come with me, right?”

The longer she thought about it, the more she realized that the dream in the box didn’t look the same as the one quickly forming in her mind. She did still think having her own ship would be the ultimate goal -- and if she had her way she’d want to somehow trade with Dalla for the _Enigma_ , seeing as she had a bond with the Corellian freighter -- but a whole crew seemed like overkill. And she wasn’t overly fond of smuggling. Perhaps just a two-woman crew would be enough to get some honorable shipping work. Or maybe she could get good enough to make a name for herself on the racing circuit. Either way, she knew she wanted her favorite Alderaanian by her side.

Cara just smirked and pulled her close again by the flap of her jacket.

“Depends....how much you payin’?”

“Oh you’d be well compensated, don’t you worry,” Rylan promised and connected them once again in a kiss meant to demonstrate just how well compensated she would be.

~

The most surprising thing about Kessel, Rylan found upon stepping off the ship once they landed, was the smell of it.

She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been expecting in that regard -- probably nothing in particular -- but she knew the musty, acrid odor that hit her nose wasn’t it. The combination of scents from metal, steam, and spice made for a uniquely off-putting air quality, and she found herself thinking about it far longer than was really necessary.

The Corellian tried to turn off her sense of smell completely as the crew members were approached by their contacts -- a group of slender creatures with large heads and small faces covered by some sort of breathing equipment.

“Pykes?” Rylan said through gritted teeth in Dalla’s direction. “Thought we weren’t on good terms with these guys after last time?”

None of them had forgotten their most recent interaction with the Pyke Syndicate, back when Cara had been new to the team. They had walked away with what they wanted that time, but two of the Syndicate’s men hadn’t walked away at all, thanks to the new enforcer’s quick blaster.

“Why do you think it took them so long to allow us here?” The captain responded rhetorically. “Doesn’t take months to work out where to send a load of spice. They were sweating us out.”

“So what are we even doing here?” Cara inquired.

“Making amends. And lots and lots of money.”

Dalla’s reasoning made sense, but Rylan couldn’t help but think then that the planet itself wasn’t the only thing that smelled funny about this. She and Cara watched the strange aliens closely as the captain and the slicer stepped forward to greet them. The humans understood only half of the conversation that ensued, as their crewmates spoke in Basic themselves but could comprehend the Pykes’ guttural language. It seemed to be going well enough.

Eventually Dalla and Ishti turned around with satisfied faces.

“All good,” the captain reported, then gestured across the landing platform at an enormous pile of spice crates. “Let’s load her up, shall we?”

The uneasy feeling in Rylan’s gut continued to eat at her as they began the task of loading the cargo onto the ship. Cara seemed to share the feeling, and their nervous glances met over a crate as R5 directed the loading droids past them and into the cargo hold. The former shock trooper had her most skeptical face on as she turned her narrowed eyes once again toward the Pykes watching nearby. Rylan followed her gaze, finding the shifty aliens averting their own stares to speak in a hushed huddle.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” the Alderaanian stated, loud enough only for Rylan to hear.

“Been having that feeling myself,” she responded before gesturing to the captain to join them.

Dalla didn’t seem to be aware of the off-ness of the moment but she recognized the apprehensive looks on her crew’s faces.

“What is it?” the Twi’lek asked, turning her back to the Pykes, who continued to hold their own conversation with occasional glances in the crew’s direction.

“Not sure,” Cara said, her voice quiet but hard. “Did we actually check these crates before we started loading them?”

“Are you kidding? These guys already don’t trust us, if we make a blatant show of not trusting them either they’ll never let us back here,” the captain argued.

“If they’re screwing us over, we aren’t gonna _want_ to come back here,” Rylan pointed out. “Forget the formalities. If these bastards are sending us away with empty crates, don’t you want to know about it before we take off?”

Dalla shifted nervously. Whether they were right or wrong, if they checked the crates the Pykes would never work with them again. But if they didn’t check, and the cargo wasn’t the highly lucrative spice they’d agreed to transport, they likely wouldn’t survive delivery at their next stop.

Rylan subtly nudged their astromech as he passed. “Arf. Scan the contents of one of the crates, would you? And do it real quiet-like.”

R5 made an inquisitive sound but did as he was told after she shot him a look. A beam of light from his cone head rolled over the nearest crate, and he grunted his findings to her. The Corellian frowned angrily.

“What’d he say?” Cara asked.

“Not spice.”

Dalla cursed under her breath in a language neither of the humans understood. Her hand moved instinctively toward the blaster at her hip. Cara’s was faster and stopped it, but it was already too late -- the move hadn’t gone unnoticed.

In the blink of an eye they found themselves in a shootout. The Pykes fired wildly as the smuggling crew dashed behind their worthless crates of cargo, suddenly finding them good for something after all.

“I don’t get why they don’t like us!” Ishti hollered over the noise of the spontaneous shootout.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe something to do with Cara _shooting_ two of them last time!” Dalla replied.

“That was _months_ ago! Why would they still be mad about that?” The enforcer defended herself at the same time as she shot two more of the Pykes. “Also, I thought that was my job! Would you rather I _didn’t_ shoot them?”

“I’d rather you all just shut up!” Rylan exclaimed.

She got her wish. With the number of Pykes on the attack dwindling quickly thanks to the Alderaanian’s sharpshooting, the spice dealers employed a new, more efficient tactic of dispatching the troublemaking crew. A round, metal device sailed across the platform, beeping rapidly as it fell just in front of them.

“Thermal detonator!” the Corellian shouted, already turning to hightail it back to the ship.

“Let’s get out of here!” Cara advised.

The four of them made a break for the _Enigma_ , almost making it before an explosion rang out across the platform. The concussion knocked them all off their feet as they neared the ramp. Three got up immediately, but the captain stayed down.

“Dall?” Rylan got to her side, finding her alive but unconscious. “Fuck! Wake up, Cap.”

“I got her, cover me!” Cara commanded.

Rylan and Ishti laid down cover fire back toward the Pykes as she dragged the captain up the ramp into the ship. When they were all aboard, the Corellian closed the hatch quickly and joined the others at Dalla’s side. The Twi’lek was coming back around, but it didn’t take a med droid to tell she wasn’t quite right.

“Cap? Can you hear me?” Ishti asked. “We gotta get outta here.”

The ship floor rattled with another detonator explosion and they could hear the pings of blaster fire against the metal hull. Dalla slurred some indecipherable answer and attempted to get up, but she fell back into Cara’s arms before making it very far.

“She’s not going to be flying us anywhere...” the Alderaanian said, shifting her eyes up to look right at Rylan’s, which were wide with fear. She spoke calmly, directly to the Corellian. “Ry? Can you get us off this rock?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” the Theelin interjected. “I could try--”

“Shut up, Ish,” Cara cut her off without taking her eyes off her girlfriend. “You can do this, Ry. Go.”

Rylan had been frozen solid where she stood since boarding the ship. Her mind raced with all the ways it could go wrong, with all the scenarios that were undoubtedly about to play out to get them killed. She didn’t think she was ready. Not for this. Not for the Kessel Run.

But Cara was nodding at her. And she knew it didn’t matter what she thought.

Rylan nodded back and took off to the cockpit. “Arf, with me!”

With the astromech at her side, she plopped down in Dalla’s pilot’s seat and fired up the engines. There was no time to think about the slight shake of her hands, the sweat covering her forehead, the incessant bounce of her leg. She didn’t think about any of it, just let her instincts take over as she ordered R5 to power up the shields and guided the freighter off the stinking rock known as Kessel.

But making it off the planet and out of range of the Pykes’ weapons was only the first -- and possibly the easiest -- of the impending challenges. Suddenly all the exciting aspects of the Kessel Run that she and Dalla had been naming off before were very real dangers. Wells, maelstroms, carbon bergs, _pirates?_ What the hell was she thinking? None of that seemed like fun anymore.

Rylan sped through the atmosphere and into the cloudy corridor, relieved to find that no one seemed to be following them. Yet. _Just follow the channel and it’ll be fine_ , she told herself.

“Alright, nothing on the scopes but keep an eye out for--” Her request to R5 was cut off by a string of offended grunts. “I know you don’t have eyes! You know what I mean!”

She shook her head at the droid’s pointless squabble and focused on following the buoyed lights guiding her through the dark channel. Just as she was beginning to think they’d make it out without any drama that wasn’t caused by R5 himself, they both saw what the scopes failed to see -- a cluster of pirate ships in the distance, blocking their only path through.

“Ohhh...sh--” Rylan’s curse was drowned out by the astromech’s loud, terrified grunts. She slowed their approach and yelled out the cockpit at the rest of the crew. “I need somebody on the dorsal guns!” One of the pirate ships fired an ion blast, and it impacted harshly against the _Enigma_ ’s deflector shield, rocking the freighter. “NOW, PLEASE!!”

“I’m on it!” Cara hollered back. After a moment her voice reached the cockpit again, only this time over the comm system. “Ry? You copy?”

“Yeah, hear you loud and clear,” the pilot replied. Cara had donned the headset in the gun turret and was already laying down fire back at the pirates. But with most of the _Enigma_ ’s power diverted to the shields, they were too far out to make much of an impact.

“How are you doing?” the Alderaanian asked calmly. Under any other circumstances, Rylan would have appreciated her impulse to check up on her, but....

“Don’t really have time for a psych eval, sweetheart!” she answered impatiently.

“Good. Stay focused.”

_I’ll do my best, Commander._

“Alright Arf, keep most of the power with the shields but give me a little more in the engines,” the Corellian ordered as she dodged incoming ion blasts. “Only shot we got at getting out of here is to slip by ‘em.”

R5 flipped the necessary switches but grunted back inquisitively at her.

“Yes, I know pirate ships usually have powerful tractor beams. That’s why I need you, Cara--”

“To take out the big ones,” she finished. “Way ahead of you.”

Rylan could stave off the little ships’ attacks on her own with her piloting and the guns in the cockpit, but if they were going to have any shot at getting through without being sucked in by a larger ship’s tractor beam, Cara would need to be precise with her heavy cannon fire. As they sped closer to the blockade, Ishti popped her head into the cockpit.

“Dall’s awake but I told her to stay put,” she informed them before getting a glimpse of the action ahead. “What the hell? Pirates? Don’t they know we didn’t actually get anything useful down there?”

“You know what, Ish, why don’t you flag them down and tell ‘em?” Rylan snarked. The Theelin didn’t quite pick up on her sarcasm and went for the comms, but the pilot shooed her away. “I was joking, laser brain. Get down below and help us shoot our way out of here!”

“I’m not gonna call them, I’m gonna jam their tractor beam projectors,” the slicer said, nudging the astromech out of the way to get at the transmission controls.

“You can do that?” the Corellian asked, half-incredulously.

“I hope so....”

She set to work at her computer magic, muttering to herself as she went. One by one, the small pirate ships met fiery ends as Cara took them out and Rylan weaved around them and toward the larger vessels, all the while making sure to avoid entering the Maelstrom. There was no telling what other horrors would be found in there, and without careful navigation there was also no assurance that they’d be able to find their way out at all. Still, as they neared the last two large ships with still-operational tractor beams, the thought did briefly cross her mind that a shortcut might not be such a terrible idea.

_Maybe next time_ , she told herself, discarding the notion.

“Ish? How’s it coming?” Rylan asked hopefully, getting back a noncommittal grumble in response. That was no good. Time was running out. “Okay Arf, if that’s not gonna work we gotta charge up the guns and the engines now. Divert all power.”

“Wait, you’re taking down the shields?” Ishti whirled around to voice her disapproval. “One hit and we’ll be toast!”

“Then either take their shit down or shut up and let me focus on not getting hit!” The pirates had only two cannons of their own remaining, one on each of the ships, and Rylan was fairly confident in her ability to dodge their slow fire. But even if she could, it wouldn’t matter unless they disabled the tractor beams or destroyed the ships. “Cara?”

“I got ‘em, babe. Just keep us flying.”

It was crazy, but the Corellian couldn’t fight the grin that crept across her face with Cara’s words. They were going to do this, she knew, together. And for the first time since Fondor, the first time since the crash, she felt perfectly at peace. Focused. Confident. Alive. For the first time in forever, Rylan knew she was right where she was meant to be.

“I can see the end of the corridor,” she said, keeping one eye on the incoming cannon fire while simultaneously working to punch in coordinates to the navicomputer. “If we can even take out one of these things I should be able to get past and make the jump to lightspeed from inside.”

“Ha! No need for that,” Ishti said suddenly. R5 grunted jubilantly by her side.

“You disabled them?” Rylan asked desperately. They were likely just out of range. Cara was doing her best with the guns, but the pirate ships must have had tough shields of their own. They had only one choice now. “You’re sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Just punch it!”

Rylan made one last dodge of an ion blast, putting them perfectly in between the ships. Choosing to trust her slicer, the Corellian checked the navigation, saw that their jump was in reach, and pushed the lever to jump to lightspeed. She shut her eyes and cringed, half expecting the resulting lurch to end with them caught in a tractor beam, but when she opened them again the familiar cerulean swirl of hyperspace was encasing the _Enigma_ like a protective armored sleeve. They were safe.

Ishti and R5 let out victorious yelps, but all Rylan could do was sigh every ounce of air from her lungs in relief and bury her face in her hands. The Theelin tousled her blonde hair playfully and fled the cockpit, R5 on her heels and calling for the pilot to join them. With one last look out the viewport and a shake of her head, the Corellian did so. She found the two of them in the common area with Dalla, where the captain was looking much better than the last time she’d seen her.

“Feelin’ alright, Cap?” she asked.

“Much better than you would be if you’d gotten my ship captured,” the Twi’lek said, then smiled and winked at her.

Cara arrived after climbing down from the gun turret and immediately took the Corellian in her strong arms. Rylan laughed to herself as she felt her feet leave the floor for a moment.

“I knew you could do it,” Cara told her as they embraced.

“Well, it was a team effort,” Ry said humbly when released.

“See!” Ishti exclaimed, then smirked suggestively at them. “See how good the three of us are together?”

Cara and Rylan rolled their eyes in unison before the pilot denied her once again. “Not gonna happen, Ish.”

The Theelin sighed in resignation, but the smirk soon returned.

“So. How many parsecs was that?”

~

Somewhat inevitably, the Kessel job turned out to be the beginning of the end of the _Enigma_ crew as they knew it. Dalla recovered quickly from the concussion she’d sustained in the explosion, but almost as quickly she’d made the decision to leave the smuggling life behind her. None of the rest of them were shocked by this. She always was going to be the first one to realize how stupid it was to stay with that life. The near-death experience only sped up the process.

The Twi’lek captain offered to set the rest of them up with other crews through her various contacts, but only Ishti had taken her up on it. Nothing would suit her but the chaotic life of a member of a smuggling crew.

But for Cara and Rylan, the news brought about a realization that neither of them wanted any more of the smuggler’s life either. Not that they knew what they did want to do. Cara had an in with the bounty hunters’ guild on Nevarro, so they figured they’d start there soon and see how they liked it.

In the meantime Rylan had been hard at work as a mechanic on her very own ship. Having very little funds (even after selling her house on Naboo) and very specific requirements left her with few options when it came to starship shopping, but she could not have been happier with her purchase. The VCX-100 she'd found was really more of a shell of a Corellian freighter, hence the low price tag. But by the time she got it fixed up, the _Echo_ was every bit as beautiful as the _Enigma_ had been in her eyes.

And for the first time, it was about to take them wherever their hearts desired.

“You sure it’s gonna fly?”

Rylan shot an offended glance across to Cara in the co-pilot’s seat. “Am I sure it’s gonna fly? Look who you’re talking to.”

“Just saying...it was only a hunk of scrap metal a few weeks ago.”

“Well that’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. It never was scrap metal...” the pilot corrected. She flipped a dozen switches, then slowly pulled one last lever. The ship purred to life, the roar of the engine growing along with Rylan’s satisfied grin. “She was always a Corellian masterpiece.”

Cara nodded in understanding, smiling softly as she wondered if her girlfriend was aware she’d just described herself.

“Just needed a little love, huh?” she asked, and Rylan smiled and nodded right back.

“Exactly.”


End file.
